Patent ID: 9407783
Filing Date: 2016-08-02
CPC Classification: H04N

Claim Text:
1. An image forming apparatus comprising: an acquiring section configured to acquire, from each of one or more pre-designated target persons, a printing requirement notification indicating whether or not the target person requires printing, and further indicating a number of required copies when the target person requires printing; a storing section configured to store output target data; a total-calculating section configured to calculate, based on one or more printing requirement notifications acquired by the acquiring section, a total number of required copies indicated by the printing requirement notifications; a determining section configured to determine a final number of copies to be printed based on a calculation result of the total-calculating section; and an image forming section configured to print an image based on the output target data in accordance with the final number of copies determined by the determining section, wherein when a plurality of printing requirement notifications have been received from a single target parson, the acquiring section cancels information that has previously been input and inputs information included in a most recent of the printing requirement notifications with respect to the total-calculating section, the storing section stores output target data for each of one or more events, the printing requirement notification includes information identifying one of the events, the image forming apparatus further comprises a managing section configured to manage links between the output target data and the events, the image forming section prints an image based on output target data of a handout that is a material to be distributed at an event indicated by the print requirement notification, the printing requirement notification includes event identification information, target person identifying information, information indicating whether or not printing is required for each handout, and information indicating a number of required copies of the handout, and the total-calculating section calculates a total number of required copies indicated by the print requirement notification for each of the events and for each piece of the output target data.