A sheet conveyance guide includes a door provided to be pivotable between an open state and a close state and permitting access to an operation portion, a releasing portion provided on the door, configured to abut with the operation portion on a guide plate positioned at a second position along with movement of the door and release a guide plate held by a holding portion, and a pressing portion provided on the door and configured to press the operation portion such that the guide plate is positioned at the first position. In addition, a retraction portion is provided on the door and configured to retract the pressing portion from a moving locus of the operation portion in moving the guide plate from the first position to the second position by abutting with the operation portion of the guide plate moving from the second position to the first position and swinging.

A method for producing a printed material includes providing pressure-induced phase transition particles on a recording medium having an arithmetic average roughness Ra of 0.07 μm or more and 3.80 μm or less to form a pressure-induced phase transition particle layer having a coverage C within a range of 30% to 90%; bonding the pressure-induced phase transition particles onto the recording medium; and folding the recording medium having the pressure-induced phase transition particles bonded thereon and pressure-bonding the folded recording medium, or pressure-bonding the recording medium having the pressure-induced phase transition particles bonded thereon and another recording medium placed on top of each other. The pressure-induced phase transition particles have at least two glass transition temperatures, and the difference between the lowest glass transition temperature and the highest glass transition temperature among the glass transition temperatures exhibited by the pressure-induced phase transition particles is 30° C. or more.

A heating device includes a heating unit that heats in a non-contact manner an upper surface of a transport material that is transported; and a blowing unit that blows air against a lower surface of the transport material via multiple blowing holes that open with respect to the lower surface, the multiple blowing holes being disposed so that blowing holes that are closest and adjacent to each other in a transport direction of the transport material are shifted from each other in an intersection direction that intersects the transport direction.

An image heating device includes a conveyance belt having a heat generation layer, and a first electrode portion, a second electrode portion and a third electrode portion that are in contact with the heat generation layer. The conveyance belt conveys a recording medium that includes an image. A first heat generation region formed on the conveyance belt between the first electrode portion and the second electrode portion generates heat to a first temperature that is equal to or greater than a deformation temperature at which a material forming the image is deformable. A second heat generation region formed between the second electrode portion and the third electrode portion generates heat to a second temperature that is different from the first temperature. The first heat generation region and the second heat generation region are located in a region of the conveyance belt to contact the recording medium.

A fixing device includes: a non-contact heating unit configured to heat a recording medium in a non-contact manner; and a contact heating unit configured to press and heat the recording medium on a downstream side of the non-contact heating unit in a conveyance direction of the recording medium, in which the non-contact heating unit controls an amount of heat applied to the recording medium according to information on whether the recording medium is black or not, and a thickness of the recording medium, and the contact heating unit controls the pressure applied to the recording medium according to the thickness regardless of whether the recording medium is black or not.

An image forming apparatus includes a first casing including a transfer unit, a second casing including a fixing unit, and a third casing provided between the first casing and the second casing and including an intermediary feeding member. The first casing includes a first discharging port discharging a recording material with a toner image. The second casing includes a first receiving port receiving the recording material with the toner image. A height from an installing surface of the image forming apparatus to the first receiving port in a vertical direction is different from a height from the installing surface to the first discharging port. The intermediary feeding member of the third casing is provided obliquely in the vertical direction from a second receiving port receiving the recording material from the first discharging port to a second discharging port delivering the recording material to the first receiving port.

A medium drying device includes a transport roller pair as a transport unit that transports a medium and a heat roller pair as one heating unit that heats the medium transported by the transport roller pair and is provided in a transport direction of the medium, in which the medium is configured to be transported to a heating area by the heat roller pair a plurality of times.

An image forming apparatus includes an image forming portion, a fixing portion configured to heat and press the sheet conveyed from the image forming portion while nipping and conveying the sheet by a first nip portion to fix toner image to the sheet, a folding portion configured to fold the sheet, and a bonding portion configured to heat and press the sheet folded by the folding portion while nipping and conveying the sheet by a second nip portion to bond the sheet by powder adhesive. A peak value of pressure that the second rotary member pair applies to the sheet in the second nip portion is greater than a peak value of pressure that the first rotary member pair applies to the sheet in the first nip portion.

Provided is a toner transfer device including: a carrier device that includes a surface on which a charged toner is carried; an electrode that attracts the toner from the surface of the carrier device; a conveyance path of a print medium which is formed between the carrier device and the electrode; and a power supply device that causes a potential difference to occur between the carrier device and the electrode to transfer the toner from the carrier device onto the print medium when the print medium is located in the conveyance path.

A photoresponsive polymer includes a structural unit represented by the following general formula (1), the photoresponsive polymer being fluidized by light irradiation, and reversibly non-fluidized:

[Chemical formula 1]

R.sub.1—Z.sub.1═Z.sub.2—R.sub.2  General formula (1) in the formula, Z.sub.1 and Z.sub.2 each represent CH or N, and Z.sub.1≠Z.sub.2, R.sub.1 represents an aromatic hydrocarbon group having a substituent R.sub.a selected from the group consisting of an alkyl group, an alkoxy group, and a halogen atom at each of two ortho positions with respect to Z.sub.1, R.sub.2 represents an aromatic heterocyclic group with or without a substituent, and at least one of the R.sub.1 and the R.sub.2 is bonded to a group containing a structure derived from a polymerizable group.