Image forming apparatus and non-transitory recording medium having recorded therein temperature control program for use in image forming apparatus

A temperature control method for use in an image forming apparatus that forms a toner image of text on a recording sheet based on page description language (PDL) data, and thermally fixes the toner image, the PDL data prescribing text data and one or more print conditions of the text data, the image temperature control method comprising:

• a condition acquisition step of analyzing the PDL data to acquire, as the print conditions, one or more of a character number, a character spacing, and a line spacing from the PDL data;
• a judgment step of making a judgment for each of the acquired print conditions, by comparing the acquired print condition with a reference value corresponding to the acquired print condition, the judgment indicating whether the acquired print condition is suitable for ensuring fixability of the toner image if the toner image is thermally fixed at a temperature that is lower than a predetermined temperature;
• and
• a temperature control step of, when the judgment step judges negatively with respect to at least one of the acquired print conditions, setting a fixing temperature at which the toner image is to be thermally fixed to the predetermined temperature, and when the judgment step judges affirmatively with respect to all of the acquired print conditions, setting the fixing temperature to the temperature that is lower than the predetermined temperature.

A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium having recorded therein a temperature control program for causing an image forming apparatus to perform temperature control processing, the image forming apparatus forming a toner image of text on a recording sheet based on page description language (PDL) data, and thermally fixing the toner image, the PDL data prescribing text data and one or more print conditions of the text data, the image temperature control processing comprising:

• a condition acquisition step of analyzing the PDL data to acquire, as the print conditions, one or more of a character number, a character spacing, and a line spacing from the PDL data;
• a judgment step of making a judgment for each of the acquired print conditions, by comparing the acquired print condition with a reference value corresponding to the acquired print condition, the judgment indicating whether the acquired print condition is suitable for ensuring fixability of the toner image if the toner image is thermally fixed at a temperature that is lower than a predetermined temperature;
• and
• a temperature control step of, when the judgment step judges negatively with respect to at least one of the acquired print conditions, setting a fixing temperature at which the toner image is to be thermally fixed to the predetermined temperature, and when the judgment step judges affirmatively with respect to all of the acquired print conditions, setting the fixing temperature to the temperature that is lower than the predetermined temperature.