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US 2004/0165906 A1Published application
Method and apparatus for forming an image
AssigneeToshiba Tec Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorKyoichi Shibata
Life of this patent
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Abstract
According to the present invention, there is provided an image forming apparatus, in which it is possible to shorten a first output time and restrain a medium from being curled caused by a prolonged time required for reversing the medium. The image forming apparatus has a reversing unit for reversing the obverse and reverse of the medium, thereby reducing a time during which the medium stays inside the reversing unit to a predetermined time or shorter.
Claims9
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- a reversing unit which reverses the obverse and reverse of a medium, on either side of which an image output is output, so as to transport the medium in such a manner that an output image can be output on the other side thereof;
- an image forming unit which outputs an image output corresponding to image data on a predetermined side of the medium;
- a data generating unit which generates image data that can be output by the image forming unit, in response to an image signal;
- an image data holding unit which holds the image data generated by the data generating unit;
- an image data transfer control unit which, in the case where the image data of two pages is held in the image data holding unit, outputs image data corresponding to 2n-th, 4n-th, . . . , mn-th pages on either side of each of first and second media, and subsequently outputs an image output corresponding to image data of a 2n-1-th page on the other side of the medium, on which the image output corresponding to the image data of the 2n-th page is output and outputs an image output corresponding to image data of a 4n-1-th page on the other side of the medium, on which the image output corresponding to the image data of the 4n-th page is output after the obverses and reverses of the respective media are reversed by the reversing unit;
- and
- a medium transportation control unit which, in the case where the image data of two pages is held in the image data holding unit, feeds the first and second media in a predetermined order in such a manner as to output the image outputs corresponding to the 2n-th, 4n-th, . . . , mn-th pages on either side of each of the first and second media, and thereafter reverses the obverses and reverses of the respective media by the reversing unit, feeds the first medium in such a manner as to output the image output of the 2n-1-th on the other side of the first medium, on which the image output of the 2n-th page is output, feeds the second medium in such a manner as to output the image output of the 4n-1-th on the other side of the second medium, on which the image output of the 4n-th page is output, and transports the medium, on which the image output corresponding to any page of the 2n-th, 4n-th, . . . , mn-th pages is currently output, to the reversing unit so as to reverse the obverse and reverse of the medium in such a manner as to output the image output preceded by one page to the page of the image output that has been just output on the other side of the medium at the time when it is detected that the image data of two pages are not held in the image data holding unit.
4 more elements
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- an image memory which stores image data therein;
- an image forming unit which outputs an image output on a predetermined side of a medium;
- a reversing unit which reverses the obverse and reverse of the medium, on a first side of which the image output has been already output;
- a medium transportation control unit which supplies the medium that has been transported to the reversing unit to the image forming unit again in order to output an image output on a second side, that is the reverse of the first side of the medium being transported to the reversing unit;
- and
- an image data control unit which, in the case where the image data of two pages are not stored in the image memory during the reversing of the medium, outputs image outputs in a first image forming mode of outputting an image output corresponding to image data of an even page on the first side of the medium, reversing the obverse and reverse, and outputting an image output corresponding to image data of an odd page on the reverse of the first side, and further outputs image outputs in a second image forming mode of, at the time when the image data stored in the image memory reach the amount of two pages, sequentially outputting an image output corresponding to image data of an n-th page that is an even page, and an image output corresponding to image data of a 2n-th page on first and second sides of each of sequential two media, respectively, reversing the obverses and reverses of the respective media, and thereafter outputting an image output corresponding to image data of an n-1-th page on the reverse of the first side of the medium, on which the image output corresponding to the image data of the n-th page is output, and subsequently outputting an image output corresponding to image data of a 2n-1-th page on the reverse of the first side of the medium, on which the image output corresponding to the image data of the 2n-th page is output.
3 more elements
An image forming method comprising:
- feeding first and second media in a predetermined order in such a manner as to output image outputs corresponding to 2n-th, 4n-th, . . . , mn-th pages on one side of each of the first and second media in the case where image data of two pages is held in an image data holding unit;
- reversing the obverses and reverses of the respective media by a reversing unit;
- feeding the first medium in such a manner as to output an image output of a 2n-1-th page on the other side of the first medium, on which the image output of the 2n-th page is output, and feeding the second medium in such a manner as to output an image output of a 4n-1-th page on the other side of the second medium, on which the image output of the 4n-th page is output;
- transporting the medium, on which the image output corresponding to any page of the 2n-th, 4n-th, . . . , mn-th pages is currently output, to the reversing unit so as to reverse the obverse and reverse of the medium at the time when it is detected that image data of two pages is not held in an image data holding unit;
- and
- transporting the medium in such a manner as to output an image output of a page preceded by one page to the page of the image output that has been just output on the other side of the medium.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.