Patent ID: 11953846
Assignee: CANON KABUSHIKI KAISHA
Field: Optics (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 13:
14. An image forming apparatus comprising:
an image bearing member configured to bear a toner image;
a transfer roller configured to form a transfer nip between said image bearing member and said transfer roller to transfer the toner image;
a position changing mechanism configured to change a position of said transfer roller so as to change a position of the transfer nip with respect to a rotational direction of said image bearing member, said position changing mechanism being configured to change the position of said transfer roller between a first position where said transfer roller presses said image bearing member to form the transfer nip and a second position where said transfer roller does not press said image bearing member; and
a controller configured to control said position changing mechanism,
wherein in a case that an operation, in which the position of the transfer nip with respect to the rotational direction of said image bearing member is changed in a period after a trailing edge of a first image area reaches the transfer nip and before a leading edge of a second image area subsequent to the first image area reaches the transfer nip during execution of a continuous image forming job for forming and outputting images on a plurality of recording materials, is executed, in the period, said controller:
(i) controls said position changing mechanism to change the position of the transfer nip with respect to the rotational direction of said image bearing member in a state in which said transfer roller presses said image bearing member, and then
(ii) controls an image forming operation so that formation of a latent image for the second image area is started after change of the position of the transfer nip is completed.