Patent ID: 8644723

Claim:
An image forming apparatus for transferring, at a transfer position, a toner image on an image carrier rotated by a drive unit onto a transfer medium, and thereafter thermally fixing the toner image to the transfer medium by a fixing device, the image forming apparatus comprising: a cleaner provided at a cleaning position on a rotation path of the image carrier, and configured to remove residual toner remaining on the image carrier; an acquisition unit configured to acquire distribution information, the distribution information relating to a distribution of a density of the residual toner remaining at each position within a section on the image carrier at an end of an image forming job, the section extending from the transfer position to immediately before the cleaning position; a determination unit configured to determine, based on the distribution information, whether or not the density of the residual toner remaining at least at the transfer position at the end of the image forming job exceeds a corresponding threshold density pertaining to occurrence of fusion of the residual toner; and a controller configured, if the determination unit determines negatively, to cause the drive unit to stop when the image forming job is completed and the residual toner remaining at the transfer position reaches a predetermined position within the section and, if the determination unit determines affirmatively, to cause the drive unit to stop when the image forming job is completed and the residual toner remaining at the transfer position reaches the cleaning position and is removed by the cleaner.