Image Forming Apparatus and Image Forming Method

Abstract

An image forming apparatus includes: a positioning unit which is structured so as to mount plural developers holding toner of the same color and which selectively moves and positions one of the mounted developers to a predetermined development position; an image carrier which carries toner images on its surface and which rotates in a predetermined direction; and a controller which executes an image forming operation of forming a toner image using the developer positioned at the development position and making the image carrier carry the toner image, wherein when a switching distance is defined as a distance that the surface of the image carrier moves during a switching time which is necessary to switch from the developer positioned to the development position to other developer by the positioning unit, the controller executes, as the image forming operation of forming three or more pages of toner images on the image carrier one after another while securing predetermined inter-image regions between the toner images, a switching-involving image forming operation of forming a predetermined number of pages of toner images using one developer, making the positioning unit switch the developer at the development position to the next developer, and thereafter forming toner images of subsequent pages using the next developer, and gaps between the toner images formed on the image carrier during the switching-involving image forming operation taken along the direction in which the image carrier moves are equal to or longer than the switching distance in a first inter-image region which is between the toner images which are formed immediately before and immediately after the switching of the developers but shorter than the switching distance in other inter-image regions.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.