Patent ID: 7684722

Claim:
An image forming apparatus which registers jobs in an order of acceptance of the jobs and which carries out an image forming process and a post-processing for a recording medium according to a content of the registered jobs, comprising: a comparing unit to compare a time needed for a post-processing of a first job which is being executed with a time needed for an image forming process of a second job which is on stand-by and which is registered; a control unit to execute the image forming process of the second job which is on stand-by after an image forming process of the first job which is being executed is ended and while the post-processing of the first job is being executed according to a comparison result of the comparing unit; and a calculation unit to calculate a time needed for a post-processing of one copy of the first job and a time needed for an image forming process of one copy of the second job; wherein the first job and the second job are jobs for one copy or a plurality of copies, the comparing unit compares the time needed for the post-processing of one copy of the first job and the time needed for the image forming process of one copy of the second job, and the control unit executes the second job one copy by one copy and executes the image forming process of the second job by allowing the image forming process of the second job to interrupt while the image forming process of the first job is temporarily stopped by executing a post-processing of an arbitrary copy of the first job, according to the comparison result of the comparing unit.