An image forming apparatus includes an image bearer, an image former, a transferor, and circuitry. The image bearer bears an image and an identification pattern. The image former forms the image and the identification pattern on the image bearer. The transferor transfers the image and the identification pattern on the image bearer directly or indirectly to a recording medium. The circuitry determines whether the identification pattern is an image portion pattern arranged at a position superimposed on the image or a position adjacent to the image, or a non-image portion pattern arranged at neither a position superimposed on the image nor a position adjacent to the image. The circuitry further causes the image former to form the non-image portion pattern larger than the image portion pattern.

An image forming apparatus includes: a conveying unit configured to convey continuous paper in a forward direction and in a reverse direction; an image forming unit configured to form an image on the continuous paper conveyed in the forward direction; a fixing unit configured to fix the image formed onto the continuous paper; an adjusting unit configured to adjust the image forming unit while the continuous paper is conveyed in the reverse direction; and a control unit configured to cause the conveying unit to convey the continuous paper in the reverse direction by an amount equivalent to a predetermined reverse conveyance distance to adjust the bottom edge of the image in a conveying direction to a position on an upstream side of the image forming unit, and cause the conveying unit to convey the continuous paper in the forward direction and cause the image forming unit to resume image formation.

An image forming apparatus includes a transfer belt, a photoconductor drum, and a transmission member. The transfer belt includes a transfer surface. The photoconductor drum faces the transfer surface of the transfer belt in an attachment state where the photoconductor drum is attached to an apparatus main body. The transmission member is attached to a drum end of the photoconductor drum on the insertion direction side and transmits an input rotational driving force to the photoconductor drum. The transmission member includes a flange and a gear. The flange is larger than the photoconductor drum in outer diameter. The gear projects from the flange in the insertion direction with teeth being formed on an outer circumferential surface of the gear, the teeth receiving the rotational driving force. The gear is larger than the photoconductor drum and smaller than the flange in outer diameter.

To provide a structure for the process cartridge for receiving input of driving force from outside thereof.

The main assembly of the electrophotographic image forming apparatus includes a driving output member provided with an output gear portion and an output coupling portion. The process cartridge that can be mounted to and dismounted from the main assembly of the electrophotographic image forming apparatus includes a photosensitive member, an input coupling portion provided at the end of the photosensitive member and capable of coupling with the output coupling portion, and an input gear portion capable of meshing with the output gear portion.

Provided is an electrophotographic photosensitive member capable of suppressing a ghost image. The electrophotographic photosensitive member includes, in this order: a support; an intermediate layer containing metal oxide particles; and a photosensitive layer, in which the intermediate layer contains at least one kind of compound X selected from the group consisting of a compound represented by the formula (1) and a compound represented by the formula (2).

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Even in a case where a master-CPU of an image forming section and a slave-CPU of a sheet transportation section are driven by respective oscillation circuits with different oscillation accuracies, a large difference in accuracy is not caused in transfer sheet transportation speed driven by clock signals formed by the respective oscillation circuits. In the master-CPU and the slave-CPU that are cascadingly connected to each other, in order to calculate a clock frequency of an oscillation circuit of the target-CPU, a predetermined time transmitted from the other CPU connected to the target-CPU is counted by the clock signal of the target-CPU. With reference to the predetermined time, an operating process, such as division of an acquired counter value by the predetermined time, acquires an error of the clock frequency of the oscillation circuit driving the slave-CPU, and corrects the error, thereby improving the accuracy thereof.

An electric power supply device includes a first electric power supply to employ electric power supplied from outside as an input source; a second electric power supply to employ a rechargeable battery as an input source; a load electric power supply part to supply electric power to a constant voltage load; a heater electric power supply part to supply electric power to a heater; a DC internal bus to connect the first electric power supply, the second electric power supply, the load electric power supply part, and the heater electric power supply part; and a controller to control an output of the second electric power supply. The controller controls electric power supply from the second electric power supply to the DC internal bus based on a voltage of the DC internal bus.

A communication apparatus includes a serializer configured to convert parallel data into serial data and output the serial data; and a deserializer configured to convert the serial data output from the serializer into parallel data and output the parallel data. The serializer is configured to add first data used for detecting unique data in the parallel data before the unique data, add second data used for detecting the unique data after the unique data, and add third data whose length is variable to each of the first data and the second data.

An image forming apparatus includes: a sheet conveyance section configured to convey a long sheet along a sheet feeding path; and an image forming section configured to form an image on the long sheet conveyed by the sheet conveyance section, the sheet conveyance section including a conveyance unit that includes a first conveyance roller and a second conveyance roller for conveying the long sheet in a sandwiching manner, and is movable along a sheet conveyance direction in a state where the long sheet is conveyed through the sheet feeding path.

Example systems and methods may relate to controlling a printing device. Specifically, systems may include a processing device and a printing device. The processing device may be configured to determine an image corresponding to a command for performing maintenance on a printing device. Such a command may include a command to restart device, clean memory, or set sleep mode, for example. The processing device may also render the image on a portable medium. The printing device may read the image using a scanner or other reading device. The printing device may then determine that a command corresponds to the image read. The printing device may then execute the command that corresponds to the image read.