Image reading device, image forming apparatus, and method for controlling image reading device to remove blank sheet image data

摘要

An image reading device (100) includes an image reading unit (1) for reading a document, a document feeder unit (2) for feeding document sheets, a setting input unit (3) for accepting a mixed setting mode, a size determination unit (7) for determining a main scanning direction size, a blank sheet detection unit (8) configured to repeat detection whether or not a blank sheet detection area (F) in image data is blank since before one page reading is completed, and when reading in the mixed setting mode, to perform the blank sheet detection process in main scanning widths of a plurality of the blank sheet detection areas (F), so as to detect whether or not the document sheet is blank in the main scanning width corresponding to the determined main scanning direction size, and a blank sheet deletion unit (9) for deleting document image data of the detected blank sheet.

主权项

1. An image reading device comprising:
an image reading unit for reading a document; a document feeder unit for feeding set document sheets one by one to a read position of the image reading unit; a setting input unit for accepting a document read instruction in a mixed setting mode in which a plurality of document sheets having different sizes are set on the document feeder unit and are read; a size determination unit for determining a size of each page of the document read by the image reading unit; a blank sheet detection unit configured to repeat detection whether or not a blank sheet detection area in image data for performing blank sheet detection is blank since before one page reading of the document is completed, and in case of reading in the mixed setting mode, to detect whether or not the document sheet is a blank sheet based on a detection result in a sub-scanning width range in the blank sheet detection area corresponding to a size of the document sheet in the sub-scanning direction determined by the size determination unit in one-page document image data; and a blank sheet deletion unit for deleting image data of the document sheet whose blank sheet detection area is detected as blank, so that the image data is not used for a job; wherein
the size determination unit determines a main scanning direction size of each page of the document, andin case of reading in the mixed setting mode, the blank sheet detection unit performs in parallel a blank sheet detection process in main scanning widths of a plurality of the blank sheet detection areas corresponding to a plurality of document sizes, and detects whether or not the document sheet is a blank sheet by using a detection result in the main scanning width corresponding to the main scanning direction size of the document sheet determined by the size determination unit among detection results in different main scanning widths of the blank sheet detection areas.