Patent ID: 8755072

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a page information acquiring unit configured to acquire page information written in a page description language; a page information analysis unit configured to analyze the acquired page information and output a drawing command for performing the formation and output of the image for each of a plurality of regions divided from a unit page; a drawing information generating unit configured to generate drawing information for performing the formation and output of the image on the basis of the drawing command; a billing amount determining unit configured to judge whether an image to be drawn is contained in each of the divided regions and determines a billing amount for each divided region on the basis of the judgment result; and a billing information storage unit configured to store information of the determined billing amount, wherein the billing amount determining unit stores information indicating a range corresponding to the divided region, for each paper size or each direction of a sheet to be subjected to the formation and output of the image; wherein the page information analysis unit outputs the drawing command for each of a plurality of regions divided from the unit page in a sub-scanning direction, and the billing amount determining unit assumes two directions perpendicular to each other in the image to be formed and output are the sub-scanning directions, calculates a billing amount for each of the divided regions for both directions, and determines the calculated billing amount in which a sum of the calculated billing amount for unit page is cheaper as the billing amount.