Patent ID: 7240901

Claim:
A sheet processing apparatus comprising: a conveying device that conveys sheets; and a controller that controls said conveying device to increase a conveyance speed of a sheet being conveyed by said conveying device in first timing so that a distance between the sheet and a succeeding sheet being conveyed by said conveying device is increased, wherein when a sheet preceding the sheet being conveyed by said conveying device is a last sheet of a set of sheets to be processed by the sheet processing apparatus, said controller controls said conveying device to increase the conveyance speed of the sheet being conveyed by said conveying device in second timing later than the first timing, wherein said conveying device conveys sheets received from an image forming apparatus that forms images on the sheets, and discharges the sheets to a first stacking position, wherein the sheet processing apparatus further comprises a sheet processing device that aligns the sheets discharged to the first stacking position and discharges in a bundle the sheets stacked at the first stacking position to a second stacking position, and wherein said controller controls said conveying device to decrease the conveyance speed of the sheet being conveyed by said conveying device until the sheet is discharged to the first stacking position, after the conveyance speed of the sheet is increased in the first timing or in the second timing.