Patent ID: 7077393

Claim:
A finisher comprising: a feeder that conveys a sheet in a first direction and a second direction that is the opposite direction from the first direction along a conveyance path; a detector that detects the sheet being conveyed; a sheet folding unit that creates a fold line in the sheet; a controller that controls the feeder and the sheet folding unit, and executes: 1) an operation in which the sheet is conveyed in the first direction, and after a downstream edge thereof relative to the first direction is detected by the detector during conveyance, the sheet is conveyed in the second direction, 2) an operation in which after such sheet edge is detected by the detector during conveyance in the second direction, the conveyance of the sheet in the second direction is continued for a prescribed amount based on a sheet length along a direction of conveyance, whereupon the sheet is stopped, and 3) an operation in which after the sheet is stopped, the sheet folding unit is operated to create a fold line at a prescribed position in the sheet; a sheet accumulator that accumulates sheets in which the fold line has been created while aligning them by the edge to create a packet of sheets; and a stapler that places staples into the sheet packet formed by the sheet accumulator.