Patent ID: 8270853

Claim:
An image forming apparatus, comprising: a consumable supply remaining amount detection unit for detecting a remaining amount of a consumable supply; a printable length detection unit for determining a printable length of a medium printable with the remaining amount; a printable length determining processing unit for determining whether the printable length is smaller than a requested print length of the medium requested with print data; a printing processing unit for performing a partial printing operation when the printable length determining processing unit determines that the printable length is smaller than the requested print length; a print pattern determining processing unit for determining whether a print pattern to be printed with the print data is a repeated pattern; and a partially printable length calculation processing unit for calculating a partially printable length of the medium printable with the remaining amount when the print pattern determining processing unit determines that the print pattern to be printed is the repeated pattern so that the printing processing unit performs the partial printing operation of the partially printable length.