Patent ID: 8340559

Claim:
A fixing device comprising: a heating rotary member; a pressurizing rotary member that forms a nip by coming in contact with the heating rotary member; and a pair of guiding members for guiding a recording sheet, which has been conveyed with a toner image formed on a surface thereof and which has passed through the nip, toward a direction along which the recording sheet is discharged, wherein in a cross-section perpendicular to a rotation axis of the heating rotary member, (i) La is a straight line connecting an axial center of the heating rotary member and an axial center of the pressurizing rotary member, (ii) Lb is a line perpendicular to the straight line La, (iii) P is a point that is on an outline of a guiding surface of one of the pair of guiding members and that is closer to the pressurizing rotary member than any other points on the outline in a direction parallel to the straight line La, said one of the pair of guiding members being positioned closer to the heating rotary member than the other, (iv) Lc is one of two tangent lines passing through the point P and tangent to an outline of an outer circumference of the heating rotary member, whose point of tangency is closer to the nip than a point of tangency of the other, and (v) D is a distance between the point P and the straight line La, the distance D is larger than or equal to 1.6 times a diameter of the heating rotary member and is smaller than 2.4 times the diameter of the heating rotary member, and downstream of the nip in a direction of conveyance of the recording sheet, the tangent line Lc leans further toward the heating rotary member than the perpendicular line Lb, and an angle formed by the tangent line Lc and the perpendicular line Lb is larger than or equal to 2.2° and is smaller than 6.5°.