It is an object to allow an advertising effect to be efficiently exercised by
certainly printing an advertisement. For this purpose, according to the invention,
print data of the user and advertisement data are synthesized so that an image
based on the print data of the user is printed into a user print area on a recording
medium and an image based on the advertisement data is printed into an advertisement
print area on the recording medium, thereby forming image data. On the basis of
the formed image data, the image based on the print data of the user is formed
into the user print area on the recording medium and the image based on the advertisement
data is formed into the advertisement print area on the recording medium.