Patent ID: 7912418

Claim:
An image-forming device comprising: an image-forming unit forming an image on a recording sheet; a sheet conveying unit that conveys the recording sheet formed with an image by the image-forming unit along a conveying path, the sheet conveying unit having a sheet discharge unit discharging the recording sheet in a sheet discharging direction; a sheet support unit disposed above the image-forming unit, and supporting the sheet discharged from the sheet discharge unit; and a reading unit disposed above the sheet support unit, with an underside surface of the reading unit opposing a top surface of the sheet support unit; wherein: the sheet discharge unit includes two rollers contacting each other at a nip point, a tangential line of the two rollers at the nip point extending diagonally so that the two rollers discharge the sheet diagonally upwardly; a side of the reading unit near the sheet discharge unit is an upstream side and a side opposite the upstream side is a downstream side; the underside surface of the reading unit extends diagonally upwardly at the upstream side; the top surface of the sheet support unit extends diagonally upwardly at the upstream side; an imaginary line extending from the nip point substantially parallel to the top surface of the sheet support unit intersects the underside surface of the reading unit at an intersecting point; the sheet conveying path is defined from an image transfer point, at which the image-forming unit forms the image on the sheet, to the intersecting point via the nip point; a distance along the sheet conveying path between the transfer point and the intersecting point is greater than a length of a recording sheet that has a maximum size among recording sheets used in the image-forming device, and a front of the image-forming device is defined as a side toward which the sheet is discharged from the sheet discharge unit and a rear of the image-forming device is defined as a side opposite the front side, further comprising a guide rib protruding downward from the underside surface of the reading unit and extending in a front-and-rear direction, all of the guide rib being located at the front side with respect to the sheet discharge unit.