An image forming apparatus includes an image forming section, a transferred member, a transferring member, and a separator. The image forming section forms a developer image by developing a developer. The transferred member is conveyed in a first direction and the developer image is to be transferred on the transferred member. The transferring member faces the transferred member, and makes a transition between a biasing state in which the transferred member is biased by the transferring member and a separated state in which the transferring member is separated away from the transferred member. The separator separates, in the separated state, a medium away from the transferred member, in which the medium is held between the transferred member and the transferring member in the biasing state.

A pasting device includes a contact member disposed at a position that is downstream of a fixing unit that heats and fixes a developer transferred to a surface of a medium and that is upstream of a position at which a temperature of the heated developer decreases to a glass transition temperature with respect to a direction in which the medium is transported, the contact member contacting an image that has passed through the fixing unit; and a pasting member that is disposed downstream of the contact member with respect to the direction in which the medium is transported and that pastes a multilayered object to the surface of the medium.

A medium feeding unit that is configure to be mounted to an image forming apparatus provided with an image forming unit and feeds a medium to the image forming unit includes a medium introducing part that introduces the medium to the image forming unit and a medium holding part that holds the medium at a feeding position from which the medium is fed to the image forming unit. The medium holding part is configured to be positioned at one of at least two different feeding positions relative to the medium introducing part.

An image forming apparatus includes: an image forming unit for forming successive images and a pattern image with developer on a transfer member, the successive images including a first image and at least one second image subsequent to the first image; a conveying unit for conveying a medium; a transfer unit for transferring the successive images on the transfer member onto the medium; a detector for detecting the pattern image on the transfer member; a controller for causing the image forming unit to form the pattern image between the first image and the at least one second image and form the at least one second image on the transfer member based on the detection of the pattern image by the detector; and a separation unit for separating the transfer member and the medium from each other to prevent the pattern image from being transferred onto the medium.

An image forming system includes a sheet conveyance unit, an image forming unit, a fixing unit and a controller. The sheet conveyance unit conveys continuous paper. The image forming unit forms an image on the continuous paper. The fixing unit fixes the image formed on the continuous paper. The controller controls an image forming operation performed by the sheet conveyance unit, the image forming unit and the fixing unit. In a case where a waste paper reduction mode is selected, the controller controls the sheet conveyance unit to stop conveying the continuous paper so that a bottom end of a last image on the continuous paper be at a second stop position on an upper-stream side of a first stop position after the bottom end of the last image passes the fixing unit when ending the image forming operation.

Disclosed is an image forming apparatus including: an image former that includes an intermediate transferer, and a secondary transferer to which a transfer bias for secondarily transferring the toner image on the intermediate transferer to a continuous recording medium is applied; a conveyor that is arranged on a downstream side of the image former and conveys the continuous recording medium; and a hardware processor that controls a speed of the intermediate transferer and a speed of the continuous recording medium conveyed by the conveyor. The hardware processor controls a timing at which the transfer bias is applied to the secondary transferer, performs control such that the speed of the continuous recording medium is higher than the speed of the intermediate transferer, and starts application of the transfer bias after the secondary transferer is pressed against the intermediate transferer and before the primary transfer is started.

An image forming method includes forming an image on a recording medium with an electrostatic charge image developing toner. The electrostatic charge image developing toner includes a toner base particle containing a release agent. A polar component .sup.p of a surface energy of the image is equal to or more than 5 mN/m.sup.2. A dispersion component .sup.d of the surface energy of the image is equal to or more than 20 mN/m.sup.2.

Provided is an image forming apparatus capable of printing on continuous sheet. The image forming apparatus includes: a fixing section that fixes an image on an unfixed surface of the continuous sheet while conveying the continuous sheet by a fixing nip; a downstream-side conveyance section that is disposed on a downstream side of the fixing section in a sheet conveyance direction and conveys the continuous sheet by a downstream-side conveyance nip; a detection section that detects a physical amount related to a thermal expansion state of a fixing member that forms the fixing nip; and a control section that controls driving aspects of the fixing section and the downstream-side conveyance section based on a detection result by the detection section.