PURPOSE: To automatically discriminate a device based on at least one of factors, i, e., the type, the size and the attribute of the data to be outputted and to output the data to this decided device by providing a data discriminate means, a device selecting means which decided an output device based on the discrimininate result of the data deciding means, etc.

CONSTITUTION: It is decided with use of a data contents analyzing program 31 whether the data 41 pointed by a file name 45 is identical with the postscript data, the text data or the binary data. This deciding result is stored in a storage 4 as a data type 42. Then the size of the data 41 is decided based on a data size detection program 32, and an output device is decided based on an output device selection program 33 respectively. Then a data output program corresponding to the decided output device name 44 is selected out of a data output program group 34. The data 41 is inputted to the selected output program and then transferred to the corresponding output device.