Patent ID: 7630673

Claim:
An image forming apparatus, comprising: an image bearing member for bearing a toner image; a transfer member arranged to face the image bearing member to form a nip portion together with the image bearing member, and adapted to transfer the toner image to a surface of a transfer sheet guided to the nip portion; a guide member arranged immediately upstream of the nip portion in a sheet conveying direction so as to guide the transfer sheet to the nip portion and to be held in sliding contact with one side of the transfer sheet, wherein the guide member includes: a first member made of a rigid member, having a flat surface along the sheet conveying direction and having a cutout with a specified width along a sheet width direction normal to the sheet conveying direction formed in the flat surface at a leading end portion located at a downstream side in the sheet conveying direction, and a second member made of an elastic flat member and placed on the flat surface of the first member so as to cover the cutout and to be held in sliding contact with the one side of the transfer sheet, and wherein the leading end of the first member is located closer to the transfer member than a tangent at the nip portion and that of the second member is located closer to the image bearing member than the tangent.