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.