Patent ID: 7365869

Claim:
An image forming apparatus, comprising: an image reader for reading an original and acquiring image data of the original; an image memory for storing the image data acquired by the image reader; a mode memory for storing image forming conditions selected for the acquired image data, said image forming conditions being at least one of: number of copies, and magnification; a printer for printing an image on a paper, based on the image data stored in the image memory, under the image forming conditions stored in the mode memory; a command unit for generating a command of discarding the image data being printed by the printer; an image data discarding controller for discarding the image data stored in the image memory when the command of discarding the image data is generated by the command unit, while maintaining the associated image forming conditions stored in the mode memory; a print control unit for causing the printer to print another image data newly read by the image reader after the discarding of image data from the image memory under the maintained image forming conditions in the mode memory; and a job stopping controller for stopping a print operation of a job being printed by the printer; wherein the command unit generates a command of discarding image data of the job stopped by the job stopping controller; and wherein the image data discarding controller discards the image data of the job stopped by the job stopping controller and maintains the image forming conditions of the job; wherein the image reader and the printer operate independently, and the image memory stores image data for a plurality of jobs; and wherein the print control means unit give priority to a new job for printing under the maintained forming conditions over the rest of the jobs on a waiting list.