Patent ID: 7782491

Claim:
An image forming apparatus which receives image information and converts the image information into print data, the print data including image data and non-image data, the apparatus comprising: plural image drums, each of which being arranged at a predetermined position, and each drum corresponding to a different color, an image processing unit which provides a user with the capability for selecting a 2-color print mode, so as to determine a first color for the image data and a second color different than the first color for the non-image data; a display unit which displays a 2-color print mode selection scene that contains plural paired selections of the first color and the second color; a separating section which separates the print data into the image data and the non-image data, the image data including a white-on-black portion and the non-image data including character data and figure data; and a color converting section which converts the image data into the first color and converts the non-image data into the second color; wherein, upon selecting the 2-color mode, the image data is printed only by one of the plurality of image drums that corresponds to the first color and the non-image data is printed only by one of the plurality of image drums corresponding to the second color, and each one of the image drums which correspond to neither the first nor the second colors is moved from its predetermined position; wherein selection of one of the plural paired selections by the user simultaneously determines both the first color and the second color, and wherein, where a portion of the character data overlaps an area of image data, the separating section creates the white-on-black portion by extracting the overlapping character data from the image data, and the color converting section converts the created white-on-black portion into the first color and converts the character data including the extracted character data into the second color such that the extracted character data in the second color surrounded by the white-on-black image converted to the first color are formed on the printed sheet.