Patent ID: 8488141

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a controller which generates image data of a page and a print control signal including print condition information concerning the image data of the page and outputs the image data and the print control signal together with a print request; and an engine which drives plural print process devices to perform a print processing of printing an image on a receiving material according to the image data upon receipt of the print request, the image data and the print control signal from the controller, wherein the engine includes an initiating device configured to initiate the print process devices upon receipt of the print request, a print performing device configured to print the image on the receiving material according to the image data using the print process devices; a print process termination device configured to terminate the initiated plural print process devices, an inquiry device configured to send an inquiry to the controller to inquire the controller whether there is a next page image to be printed, when a next page print request is not received within a predetermined waiting time, a print process controller, which sets a predetermined second waiting time upon receipt of a response from the controller such that there are next page image data while stopping termination of the plural print process devices, which is to be performed by the print process termination device, for the predetermined second waiting time to await the print request for the next page image, and a print condition information obtainment requesting device configured to request the controller to obtain one or more pieces of the print condition information concerning the next page image data, wherein the print process controller is configured to control the print process termination device according to information on pixel density of the image of the next page included in the print condition information sent from the controller when the print condition information obtainment request is made.