Patent ID: 7983584

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a feeding unit adapted to store at least one tabbed sheet group, each of the at least one tabbed sheet group consisting of a plurality of tabbed sheets having tabs formed therein at different positions, said feeding unit being adapted to feed the stored tabbed sheets; a refeeding unit adapted to reverse front and back sides of the tabbed sheets fed from said feeding unit and adapted to feed the reversed tabbed sheets; an image processing unit adapted to perform rotation processing to rotate an image to a predetermined direction and perform sorting processing to sort images to be formed on a plurality of tabbed sheets into a predetermined order; and a control unit adapted to control the image forming apparatus and adapted to determine a number of tabbed sheets constituting one tabbed sheet group and a number of tabbed sheets which will be used for image formation for a first set among the tabbed sheets constituting the one tabbed sheet group, wherein said control unit is adapted to determine a number of surplus tabbed sheets which will be left unused for the image formation for the first set among the tabbed sheets constituting the one tabbed sheet group in accordance with the determined number of tabbed sheets constituting the one tabbed sheet group and the determined number of the tabbed sheets which will be used for the image formation for the first set, and in a case where the number of the tabbed sheets which will be used for the image formation for the first set is not greater than the determined number of surplus tabbed sheets, said control unit is adapted, at a time of image formation for a second set, to make control such that the rotation processing and the sorting processing are performed by said image processing unit, front and back sides of the surplus tabbed sheets are reversed and the reversed surplus tabbed sheets are fed by said refeeding unit, and images subjected to the rotation processing and the sorting processing are formed on the surplus tabbed sheets by said image processing unit.