An adhesion apparatus includes: an image forming unit configured to form, through an electrophotographic process, an adhesive image of a powder adhesive on a sheet that is conveyed; and a control unit configured to control the image forming unit to use a first pattern in a first conveyance period, and use a second pattern different from the first pattern in a second conveyance period following the first conveyance period, as a formation pattern in an adhering section corresponding to part of a width direction orthogonal to a conveyance direction of the sheet.

A sheet processing includes a first conveyance path, a buffering portion, a second conveyance path, a conveyance roller pair, a supporting portion, a moving member, a regulating portion, and a processing unit. The buffering portion is configured to superimpose a first sheet and a second sheet on each other in a state of being offset from each other in a sheet conveyance direction. An offset amount, by which a leading end of the first sheet in the sheet conveyance direction projects downstream in the sheet conveyance direction with respect to a leading end of the second sheet in the sheet conveyance direction in a state before the first sheet and the second sheet are discharged onto the supporting portion, is larger than a distance from a sheet contact position of the moving member to the regulating portion in the sheet conveyance direction.

A decoloring apparatus includes a sheet conveying unit, a scanner, a decoloring unit, and a controller. The decoloring unit decolors the image on the sheet conveyed through the sheet conveying unit. The decoloring unit is positioned downstream of the scanner in a sheet conveying direction. A distance along the sheet conveying direction between the scanner and the decoloring unit is shorter than a length of a first predetermined sheet size and longer than a length of a second predetermined sheet size. A controller determines whether the sheet conveyed by the sheet conveying unit is the first predetermined sheet size or the second predetermined sheet size. The controller performs a mode limiting process if the sheet size is determined to be the first predetermined sheet size.

A sheet post-processing apparatus includes a sheet introducing unit, a first sheet discharge unit, a second sheet discharge unit, a sheet processing unit, a sheet conveyance unit, and a control unit. The first and the second sheet discharge unit are configured to be able to discharge a sheet to an outside. The sheet conveyance unit includes a sheet conveyance path arranged between the first sheet discharge unit and the second sheet discharge unit. The control unit controls the sheet conveyance unit to convey the sheet along the sheet conveyance path toward the first sheet discharge unit to a predetermined position at which the sheet is not discharged from the first sheet discharge unit to the outside, then convey the sheet along the sheet conveyance path in an opposite direction toward the second sheet discharge unit, and discharge the sheet from the second sheet discharge unit.

An intermediate unit includes a transportation path along which a medium, on which printing has been performed by a printing unit that performs printing on the medium by using liquid, is transported to a post processing unit that performs post processing on the medium. The transportation path is provided with a drying unit that accelerates the drying of the medium. The drying unit is driven according to the printing data.

An image forming apparatus includes, an image forming portion configured to form a toner image on a sheet using printing toner and apply powder adhesive on the sheet, a fixing portion configured to heat the toner image formed on the sheet and the powder adhesive applied on the sheet by the image forming portion and fix the toner image and the powder adhesive to the sheet, and a bonding portion configured to bond the sheet with the powder adhesive by reheating the sheet having been heated by the fixing portion. The bonding portion is arranged above the image forming portion.

An image forming apparatus includes a first control circuit, a second control circuit, and a third control circuit. The first control circuit communicates with an information processing device. The second control circuit is configured to communicate with the first control circuit. The third control circuit is configured to communicate with the second control circuit and control a printer. The first control circuit is configured to receive print information from the information processing device during a power-saving mode and control the start of the second control circuit based on the print information. The second control circuit is configured to control a power supply to the third control circuit based on the start by the first control circuit and transmit, to the third control circuit, a warm-up start instruction for the printer based on the print information acquired from the first control circuit after communication with the third control circuit becomes possible.

A sheet processing apparatus that can suppress a reduction in a quality of a finish of a fold part of a stack of center-folded sheets without losing an ease of center-folding. The sheet processing apparatus comprises a creasing unit for forming a folding stripe on a sheet so as to facilitate folding the sheet, and an acquisition unit for acquiring information related to a thickness of the sheet. One or more sheets to be provided with folding stripes are determined, from among a plurality of sheets to be folded, according to the information related to the thickness of the sheets, and each of the determined one or more sheets are provided with a folding stripe.

An embodiment includes a method of determining whether or not to perform a decoloring process on a sheet. A front position of a sheet fed in a sheet transport direction is detected. A presence or absence of an identification mark on a front portion of the sheet outside of an image forming area of the sheet is detected, after detecting the front position of the sheet. A determination is made of whether an image formed with decolorable color material is printed on the sheet based on whether an identification mark is detected on the front portion of the sheet. When the image formed with decolorable color material is determined to be printed on the sheet, the image is decolored.

Pressure-responsive particles include pressure-responsive base particles and resin particles, in which the pressure-responsive base particles contain a styrene-based resin that contains styrene and other vinyl monomers as polymerization components and a (meth)acrylic acid ester-based resin that contains at least two kinds of (meth)acrylic acid esters as polymerization components, a ratio of a mass of the (meth)acrylic acid esters to a total mass of polymerization components is 90% by mass or more in the (meth)acrylic acid ester-based resin, the pressure-responsive particles have at least two glass transition temperatures, a difference between a lowest glass transition temperature and a highest glass transition temperature is 30° C. or higher, and a ratio of a mass of the resin particles to a total mass of the pressure-responsive particles is 0.05% by mass or more and 2.0% by mass or less.