Patent ID: 7010254

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: image carrying members; and an intermediate transfer body in an endless shape movable and receivable of toner images from said image carrying members at first and second transfer positions, wherein a toner image formed on said intermediate transfer body is transferred onto a transfer material after passing said first transfer position and said second transfer position again, wherein said first transfer position is a position for transferring to said intermediate transfer body from a nearest image carrying member on a downstream side in a moving direction of said intermediate transfer body with respect to a position that the toner image is transferred from said intermediate transfer body to the transfer material, wherein said second transfer position is a position for transferring to said intermediate transfer body from said nearest image carrying member on an upstream side in the moving direction of said intermediate transfer body with respect to a position that the toner image is transferred from said intermediate transfer body to the transfer material, and wherein the following relationship is satisfied where a distance from said first transfer position to said second transfer position along the moving direction of said intermediate transfer body is denoted as Lab, a circumference of said intermediate transfer body in the moving direction is denoted as Lr, and a maximum length of said toner image formed on said intermediate transfer body is denoted as Lm: Lr−Lm>Lab , wherein a toner image of an image is transferred onto said intermediate transfer body after toner images of the previous image are entirely formed on said intermediate transfer body where the toner images are formed successively.