Patent ID: 7584948

Claim:
A sheet processing apparatus that sequentially receives sheets discharged from an image forming apparatus and carries out post-processing on the sheets, comprising: a sheet conveying section configured to convey the sheets discharged from said image forming apparatus toward the downstream side; a sheet retaining and conveying section configured to retain at least one sheet of the sheets conveyed from said sheet conveying section and convey the retained at least one sheet and a succeeding sheet, while being overlapped one another, as a sheet bundle to the downstream side; a sheet bundle stacking section configured to stack the sheet bundle conveyed from said retaining and conveying section and carrying out the post-processing on one or more sheet bundles stacked by the sheet bundle stacking section; and a control section configured to control said conveying section such that a conveying speed at which a final sheet out of the plurality of sheets to be constituted in each sheet bundle is conveyed by the sheet conveying section is lower than a conveying speed at which other sheets except the final sheet are conveyed by the sheet conveying section.