Image forming apparatus for reading plural documents placed on document support surface

An image forming apparatus comprising:

• (i) a document reading device capable of reading a plurality of original documents placed on a document support surface in a batch by a single read job;
• (ii) a storage device that stores a table in which each of type names representing individual types of original documents is associated with a plurality of item names previously set for the individual type of original document;
• (iii) a control device that includes a processor and functions, through the processor executing a control program, as:
• an individual image cutouter that performs processing for cutting out, from image data obtained by reading of the plurality of original documents by the document reading device, separate individual images of the original documents;
• a character recognizer that recognizes, for each of the individual images cut out by the individual image cutouter, characters contained in a piece of image data on the individual image;
• a document determiner that determines, for each of the individual images, whether or not the characters recognized from the individual image by the character recognizer contain the type name shown in the table stored in the storage device;
• an acquirer that, upon determination of the document determiner that the characters recognized from the individual image by the character recognizer contain the type name, acquires, from the characters of the individual image determined to contain the type name, a plurality of informative character strings associated one-to-one with the plurality of item names shown in the table stored in the storage device;
• and
• a data generator that generates, for each of the individual images, a piece of document data in which the type name determined by the document determiner is associated with the plurality of informative character strings acquired by the acquirer, and
• (iv) a document data storage that stores the pieces of document data generated one for each of the individual images by the data generator.