Patent ID: 7604233

Claim:
A movable paper guide in an image forming apparatus, in which registration rollers and pre-registration rollers are arranged on an upstream side of an electrostatic latent image carrier, and after a leading edge of carried paper contacts the registration rollers and the paper is caused to temporarily stop in a state in which a trailing edge side is sandwiched by the pre-registration rollers, carrying of the paper recommences with a timing enabling a leading edge of image information that has been developed on the electrostatic latent image carrier and a leading edge of the paper that has been stopped by the registration rollers to correspond, wherein a guide member, which is constituted by an upper paper guide and a lower paper guide that form a paper transport path, is arranged between the registration rollers and the pre-registration rollers, the upper paper guide is supported swingably during printing operation by having substantially central area of the upper paper guide supported by a hanging member on a device frame, and the substantially central area of the upper paper guide is a position at which the upper paper guide maintains a balanced state.