Image forming apparatus for producing booklet

Abstract

There is described an image forming apparatus, which makes it possible to realize a high productivity in the booklet outputting operation. The apparatus comprises: an image data acquiring section to acquire consecutive image data, which include main content image data and at least a part of cover sheet image data succeeding the main-content sheet image data; an image forming section to conduct an image forming operation based on the main content image data and the cover sheet image data, acquired by the image data acquiring section; an image data presence-or-absence detecting section to detect a presence or absence of (i+1)th image data acquired by the image data acquiring section, wherein “i” represents a page number of image data sets necessary for forming cover sheet images on a cover sheet; and a control section to control the image forming section so as to commence the image forming operation.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings which are meant to be exemplary, not limiting, and wherein like elements are numbered alike in several Figures, in which:

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of an image forming system embodied in the present invention;

FIG. 2( a), FIG. 2(b), FIG. 2(c) and FIG. 2(d) show exemplified schematic diagrams indicating relationships between input timings of input image data and timings of commencing image forming operations;

FIG. 3( a) and FIG. 3(b) show other exemplified schematic diagrams indicating relationships between input timings of input image data and timings of commencing image forming operations; and

FIG. 4 shows a flowchart of image forming processing embodied in the present invention.

Claims

1. An image forming apparatus, comprising: an image data acquiring section to acquire consecutive image data, which include main content image data and at least a part of cover sheet image data succeeding the main-content sheet image data;an image forming section to conduct an image forming operation based on the main content image data and the cover sheet image data, acquired by the image data acquiring section;an image data presence-or-absence detecting section to detect a presence or absence of (i+1)th image data acquired by the image data acquiring section, wherein “i” represents a page number of image data sets necessary for forming cover sheet images on a cover sheet, and -th is replaced by corresponding one of -st, -nd, -rd, when a calculated value in the parentheses is equal to any one of 1, 2, 3; anda control section to control the image forming section so as to commence the image forming operation.

2. The image forming apparatus of claim 1, further comprising: a storage section to store the page number of image data sets necessary for forming the cover sheet images on the cover sheet.

3. The image forming apparatus of claim 1, further comprising: a paper feeding section to feed the cover sheet, on which the cover sheet images based on the cover-sheet image data are formed, and a main content sheet, on which each page of main-content sheet images based on the main content image data is formed;wherein, when the image data presence-or-absence detecting section detects a presence of the (i+1)th image data, the control section controls the paper feeding section so as to feed the main content sheet to the image forming section and controls the image forming section so as to form an image based on {i−(j−1)}th image data; andwherein “j” represents a page number of image data sets, which are acquired by the image data acquiring section and succeed the main content image data.

4. The image forming apparatus of claim 3, further comprising: a counting section to count a page number of image data sets based on which the image forming section already completes the image forming operation;wherein “p” represents the page number of image data sets, and when the image data presence-or-absence detecting section detects a absence of (p+j+1)th image data, the control section controls the paper feeding section so as to feed the cover sheet to the image forming section and controls the image forming section so as to form the cover sheet images based on the cover sheet image data on the cover sheet;

5. The image forming apparatus of claim 1, further comprising: a paper feeding section to feed the cover sheet, on which the cover sheet images based on the cover-sheet image data are formed, and a main content sheet, on which each page of main-content sheet images based on the main content image data is formed;wherein, when the image data presence-or-absence detecting section detects an absence of the (i+1)th image data, the control section controls the paper feeding section so as to feed the cover sheet to the image forming section and controls the image forming section so as to form the cover sheet images based on the cover sheet image data onto the cover sheet.

6. The image forming apparatus of claim 1, wherein the cover sheet image data, acquired by the image data acquiring section, includes front cover image data and rear cover image data.

7. The image forming apparatus of claim 6, wherein the image data acquiring section acquires the consecutive image data in order of the front cover image data, the main content image data and the rear cover image data.

8. An image forming apparatus, comprising: an image data acquiring section to acquire consecutive image data, which include main content image data and at least a part of cover sheet image data succeeding the main-content sheet image data;an image forming section to conduct an image forming operation based on the main content image data and the cover sheet image data, acquired by the image data acquiring section;an image data presence-or-absence detecting section to detect a presence or absence of i-th image data acquired by the image data acquiring section, wherein “i” represents a page number of image data sets necessary for forming cover sheet images on a cover sheet, and -th is replaced by corresponding one of -st, -nd, -rd, when a value of “i” is equal to any one of 1, 2, 3; anda control section to control the image forming section so as to commence the image forming operation.

9. The image forming apparatus of claim 8, wherein the cover sheet image data, acquired by the image data acquiring section, includes front cover image data and rear cover image data.

10. The image forming apparatus of claim 9, wherein the image data acquiring section acquires the consecutive image data in order of the front cover image data, the main content image data and the rear cover image data.

11. An image forming apparatus, comprising: an image data acquiring section to acquire consecutive image data, which include main content image data and at least a part of cover sheet image data succeeding the main-content sheet image data;an image forming section to conduct an image forming operation based on the main content image data and the cover sheet image data, acquired by the image data acquiring section;a control section to control the image forming section so as to commence the image forming operation, when a page number of image data sets currently acquired by the image data acquiring section exceeds a predetermined page number of image data sets necessary for forming cover sheet images on a cover sheet.

12. The image forming apparatus of claim 11, wherein the cover sheet image data, acquired by the image data acquiring section, includes front cover image data and rear cover image data.

13. The image forming apparatus of claim 12, wherein the image acquiring section acquires the consecutive image data in order of the front cover image data, the main content image data and the rear cover image data.