To make it possible to shorten the time for molding when carrying out press molding while always keeping slide plates in a desired positional relation.

A press has sliding plates for pressing a molding metallic die. The press is provided with a plurality of drive sources for driving the slide plates, a plurality of displacement measuring means for measuring the displacement of the slide plates, and a control means for controlling the driving of the drive sources. Control data are obtained corresponding to each of the drive sources in such a way that the whole slide plates are in a desired positional relation at every step of a plurality of operation steps during a trial molding operation. The control means is provided with a means, which makes the obtained control data correspondent to a plurality of operation steps during an actual molding operation, so that the control means feeds the corresponding control data to each of the drive sources and drives the drive sources.