A printing system enables easily recognizing the status of a printing process. The host computer 2 has a print job transmission unit that sends print jobs to a printer, a notification pattern setting unit that sets a notification pattern, and a notification control command transmission unit that sends a notification control command asynchronously to the print job transmission unit. The printer 3 has a print job reception unit that receives the print jobs, a printing unit 48, a print job detection unit that detects print job commands, for example, a notification control command reception unit that receives the notification control commands, a storage unit 53 that stores the received notification control commands, a first notification evaluation unit that, when triggered by a detection by the print job detection unit, determines if there is a notification control command containing the same print job ID as the print job, and a notification unit that outputs a user notification based on the notification pattern contained in the notification control command when there is a notification control command.