Patent ID: 7567354

Claim:
An image copying device, comprising: a reading portion that reads in an image formed on one surface of a document; a storage portion that stores image data that is read in by the reading portion; an image forming portion that forms an image on a recording medium based on the image data stored in the storage portion; a reading control portion that provides control such that, when a plurality of documents having images formed on both sides thereof are to be read by the reading portion, images formed on one surfaces of the documents are read in sequentially and are stored sequentially in the storage portion, and then, after the reading in of the one surfaces of the documents is completed, images on the other surfaces of the documents are read in sequentially and are stored sequentially in the storage portion; and image forming control portion that reads out, from the storage portion, image data for the one surfaces of the documents and the corresponding image data of the other surfaces of the documents, that controls the image forming portion to form images sequentially on the recording medium based on the image data, and that causes the start of the forming of images on the recording medium by the image forming portion before the reading in of all of the other surfaces of the documents by the reading portion has been completed.