An image forming apparatus includes an engine to form an image on an image forming medium, a paper transfer device to pick up a printing paper and transfer the paper to a transfer path, a sensor to sense a printing paper at a predetermined position on the transfer path, and a processor to determine whether a transfer delay occurs, when the printing paper is sensed, and adjust a pickup timing to advance a pickup of a printing paper of a next page.

There is used an image forming apparatus including a fixing unit configured to heat a recording material at a fixing nip portion to fix a toner image, and a control unit configured to switch a target temperature, wherein, in the case where the target temperature of preceding recording material is first temperature, the target temperature of subsequent recording material is second temperature which is higher than the first temperature, and a difference between the second temperature and the first temperature has a first value, the control unit performs switching from timing which is earlier than reaching of the second recording material to the fixing nip portion by a predetermined period, and, the higher the target temperature of the preceding recording material, the shorter the predetermined period.

A rotating member control device that controls a first rotating member and a second rotating member to convey a sheet includes a processor configured to execute a program to implement processes of controlling the first rotating member and the second rotating member to come into contact or be separated from each other and acquiring a value that corresponds to or is proportional to a driving torque of a first driving unit that rotationally drives the first rotating member. The processor acquires the value upon separation when the first rotating member and the second rotating member are separated from each other and upon conveyance when the sheet is held between and conveyed by the first rotating member and the second rotating member. The processor further sets a rotational speed of the second rotating member such that the value acquired upon separation and the value acquired upon conveyance become equal.

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 information processing device performs processing of specifying a positional relationship between a first printing section and a second printing section based on image capturing data of a test image that is printed on a printing medium by the first printing section and the second printing section in each of which a plurality of printing elements are arranged. The test image includes a plurality of first lines which are printed by the first printing section so as to have printing positions different from each other in a line arrangement direction on the printing medium and a plurality of second lines which are printed by the second printing section so as to have printing positions different from each other in the line arrangement direction. The information processing device contains a printing coordinate acquisition section, a printing position acquisition section, and a positional shift amount calculation section.

An image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member, an image forming portion, an endless belt, a plurality of stretching rollers including an inner roller, an outer roller, a position changing mechanism capable of changing a position of the inner roller to a first position and a second position positioned downstream of the first position with respect to a rotational direction of the endless belt, a feeding member, a feeding member driving portion, and a controller. A feeding start timing of a recording material by the feeding member depends on the position of the inner roller during transfer of a toner image onto the recording material.

An image forming apparatus including an image forming unit, a discharging portion, a supporting portion, an image reading portion, and a switching portion is provided. The image forming unit is configured to form an image on a sheet. The discharging portion is configured to discharge the sheet on which the image has been formed. The supporting portion is configured to support the sheet discharged by the discharging portion. The image reading portion is configured to read, at a reading position, the image formed on the sheet. The switching portion is configured to switch between causing the sheet discharged by the discharging portion to be conveyed to the supporting portion and causing the sheet discharged by the discharging portion to be conveyed toward the image reading portion. The sheet conveyed toward the image reading portion is conveyed to the reading position after conveyance by the discharging portion is finished.

The present invention relates to a printing system for cut sheets, the printing system comprising a control unit for controlling the printing of image data on a plurality of sheets and scheduling the plurality of sheets in a printing order, the plurality of sheets having different media properties, and a paper path comprising a loop in order to enable printing on the plurality of sheets in an interweaving first and second pass in the loop, and a print engine for disposing marking material on the sheets according to the image data. The print system comprises a pattern recognition module for recognizing a repeating pattern in the plurality of sheets on the basis of the media properties of the sheets. The control unit is configured to determine the entrance time of each of the plurality of sheets for entering the loop in the paper path for the first pass and for the second pass while taking the repeating pattern recognized by the pattern recognition module and a length of the loop into account.

An image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member, an image forming portion, an endless belt, a plurality of stretching rollers including an inner roller, an outer roller, a position changing mechanism capable of changing a position of the inner roller to a first position and a second position positioned downstream of the first position with respect to a rotational direction of the endless belt, a feeding member, a feeding member driving portion, and a controller. A feeding start timing of a recording material by the feeding member depends on the position of the inner roller during transfer of a toner image onto the recording material.

An image forming apparatus that forms developer images on a continuous medium includes a control part that performs a developer image forming on an intermediate transfer body with an interval; a transfer part that transfers developer images to the continuous medium; an interval detection part that detects the interval of positions to which the developer images; and an interval information memory that stores interval information of the interval. Wherein, the control part obtains the interval information from the interval information memory when starting an operation of forming the developer image, and determines a timing of forming the developer images on the intermediate transfer body based on the interval information, and when the interval is detected by the interval detection part, the control part updates the interval information in the interval information memory based on the interval that is detected.