A print job canceling method for a printer is described and is especially useful in a printer with relatively small buffer memory. When a print job is cancelled by the user using the printer's control panel, this method allows the printer controller to receive additional print jobs while the current job is being cancelled, without having to notify the host to stop sending the current print job. The printer controller reduces the memory allocated to the job being cancelled. The printer controller continues to accept data for the current job from the host, but does not print the received data. The data is subsequently flushed from the memory. The printer controller also assigns a lower priority to the print job being cancelled. Meanwhile, the remaining memory can be used to receive and print additional print jobs.