Image forming apparatus and image forming method

摘要

Damage caused to a transfer medium due to heat when partially using transfer material regions is suppressed. An image forming apparatus (1) includes a transporting unit (4A, 4B) which transports a belt-like transfer medium (4) on which transfer material regions (Y, M, C, OP) of a first size respectively corresponding to transfer materials are arranged in a predetermined order in a repeated manner along a longitudinal direction thereof, and an image forming unit (3) which transfers the transfer materials in sequence by heating the respective transfer material regions and thereby forms on a recording medium an image with the first size or an image with a second size which is not larger than one half the first size. When forming an image with the second size, the image forming unit either uses unused portions of transfer material regions that have already been used to form an image with the second size or uses new transfer material regions on the transfer medium. When forming the image with the second size by using the new transfer material regions, the image forming unit performs the image formation at a slower speed than when forming an image with the first size.

主权项

1. An image forming apparatus comprising:
a transporting unit which transports a belt-like transfer medium on which a plurality of transfer material regions of a first size respectively corresponding to a plurality of transfer materials are arranged in a predetermined order in a repeated manner along a longitudinal direction thereof; and an image forming unit which transfers the transfer materials in sequence by heating the respective transfer material regions and thereby forms on a recording medium an image with the first size or an image with a second size which is not larger than one half the first size, wherein when forming an image with the second size, the image forming unit either uses unused portions of transfer material regions that have already been used to form an image with the second size or uses new transfer material regions on the transfer medium, and when forming the image with the second size by using the new transfer material regions and when forming the image with the second size by using the unused portions of the transfer material regions that have already been used to form an image with the second size, the image forming unit performs the image formation at the same speed which is slower than when forming an image with the first size.