Image forming apparatus to erase hand-written images from image data

An image forming apparatus comprising:

• an image reading section for reading a document placed on a contact glass to generate image data;
• and
• a control section for deciding whether or not the document is present at a specified position of the contact glass, and in response to deciding that the document is present at the specified position, executing a handwritten-image erasing, process of erasing handwritten images from the image data of the document read by the image reading section;
• wherein
• one of corner positions present on one end side of a sub scanning direction out of four corner positions of a document placement surface of the contact glass is set as a normal alignment position with which a corner of the document is to be coincident during reading process involving no handwritten-image erasing process,
• a corner position opposed to the normal alignment position in the sub scanning, direction out of the four corner positions is set as the specified position, and
• before reading of the document by the image reading section, the control section instructs the image reading section to execute a prescan process of reading an area of the contact glass on the one end side of the sub scanning direction and, based on image data obtained by the prescan process, the control section decides whether or not the document is present at the normal alignment position, where upon deciding that the document is present at the specified position and moreover deciding that the document is absent at the normal alignment position, the control section executes the handwritten-image erasing process.