Distribution of electronic documents is described, including receiving an electronic document to be distributed, identifying whether a destination identifier is associated with a destination account among a known group of customer accounts, routing the electronic document, and calculating a fee associated with delivery of the electronic document based on whether the destination account is among the known group of customers and a set of billing rules. The set of billing rules may specify a discounted fee for routing an electronic document to each of a known group of customer accounts. In other aspects, the set of billing rules may specify a discounted fee for routing an electronic document to a first group of the known group of customer accounts and specify a standard fee for a second group of the known group of customer accounts.

A printer is caused to perform duplex printing by an information processing device in which an OS standard printing program is installed. When causing a printer connected to a PC to execute duplex printing based on a print instruction output from an editing application installed in the PC, an auxiliary program that supports the printer executes rotation processing of rotating an image of a page, which is required to be rotated, by 180° for intermediate data received from a general-purpose print program, executes rearrangement processing of rearranging a processing order from a page order to a print order for print data received from the general-purpose print program, according to a sheet conveying aspect of the printer, and transmits the print data after the rotation processing and the rearrangement processing from the PC to the printer.

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.

In a printer, when a storage print job is a print job for execution of carbon-copy printing, a controller performs: creating a plurality of bit map data by rasterizing page-description-language data contained in the storage print job a plurality of times; storing the created bit map data; and controlling an image former to print images based on the stored bit map data when a print instruction for the storage print job is received. When the storage print job is a print job not for execution of the carbon-copy printing, the controller performs: storing the page-description-language data contained in the storage print job; when the print instruction for the storage print job is received, rasterizing the stored page-description-language data to create bit map data; and controlling the image former to print an image based on the created bit map data.

A system in an embodiment includes an image forming apparatus, an erasing apparatus, a first apparatus, and a display unit. The image forming apparatus forms an image on a sheet using a decolorable color material. The erasing apparatus decolorizes an image. The first apparatus computes, from a reduction in the number of sheets achieved by a setting for image formation in the image forming apparatus, the amount of a reduction in environmental burdens achieved by use of the image forming apparatus and computes, from the number of sheets erased by the erasing apparatus, the amount of a reduction in environmental burdens achieved by use of the erasing apparatus. The display unit simultaneously displays the amount of the reduction in environmental burdens achieved by the image forming apparatus and the amount of the reduction in environmental burdens achieved by the erasing apparatus.

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide an image forming control method, an image forming apparatus, and a non-transitory storage medium. The image forming control method includes acquiring job data and job parameters corresponding to the job data, where the job parameters include an image post-processing direction and a job data direction; determining a sheet feed direction based on the image post-processing direction and the job data direction in conjunction with a pre-stored corresponding relationship for characterizing a preset image post-processing direction, a preset job data direction, and a preset sheet feed direction; and based on the sheet feed direction, the job data, the job data direction, and the image post-processing direction, controlling an image forming device to perform an image forming operation, and controlling an image post-processing device to perform an image post-processing operation.

An optical member that refracts a light beam to diverge or focus the light beam, includes: at least three pairs of opposing surfaces. Each of the three pairs of opposing surfaces include a lens. Curvatures of the lenses at one side surfaces of the respective three pairs of surfaces are all the same, or curvatures of the lenses at one side surfaces of respective pairs of at least two pairs of the three pairs of surfaces are different from each other, and respective shortest distances between optical axes of the lenses at the one side surfaces of respective pairs of the at least two pairs of surfaces, and reference sides which are each any one of respective sides surrounding surfaces including the lenses are different from each other.

A multifunction apparatus includes a reading mechanism including a document discharge port configured to discharge a document, a recording mechanism including a medium discharge port configured to discharge a recording medium, and a control unit, and a path through which a leading end of the recording medium discharged from the medium discharge port passes and the document discharged from the document discharge port have such a positional relationship to intersect with each other at an intersecting position, and when the leading end of the recording medium is discharged from the medium discharge port in a stop state where the document discharged from the document discharge port blocks the path of the leading end of the recording medium discharged from the medium discharge port, the control unit performs a predetermined operation for canceling the stop state before causing the leading end of the recording medium to reach the intersecting position.

A multifunction apparatus includes a reading mechanism including a document discharge port configured to discharge a document, a recording mechanism including a medium discharge port configured to discharge a recording medium, and a control unit, and a path through which a leading end of the recording medium discharged from the medium discharge port passes and the document discharged from the document discharge port have such a positional relationship to intersect with each other at an intersecting position, and when the leading end of the recording medium is discharged from the medium discharge port in a stop state where the document discharged from the document discharge port blocks the path of the leading end of the recording medium discharged from the medium discharge port, the control unit performs a predetermined operation for canceling the stop state before causing the leading end of the recording medium to reach the intersecting position.

A control device includes a processor and a first storage portion. The processor executes a control process based on data stored in a main memory. The first storage portion stores a first memory image related to the main memory after a process of starting-up an operating system by the processor is completed. The control device loads the first memory image into the main memory if the operating system is started up.