Patent ID: 8428489

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: an image carrier; a latent-image forming device that forms a latent image in a surface of the image carrier; a developing device that develops the latent image of the surface of the image carrier; a latent-image forming device contacting/separating mechanism that moves the latent-image forming device between a latent-image forming device contacting position where a part of the latent-image forming device is positioned with being contacted with a part of the image carrier, and a latent-image forming device separating position where the latent-image forming device is separated from the image carrier; and a developing device contacting/separating mechanism that moves the developing device between a developing device contacting position where a part of the developing device is positioned with being contacted with a part of the image carrier, and a developing device separating position where the developing device is separated from the image carrier, wherein the developing device contacting/separating mechanism performs at least one of (iii) and (iv), wherein (iii) is that the developing device contacting/separating mechanism allows the developing device to be movable to the developing device contacting position in a state where the latent-image forming device is moved to the latent-image forming device separating position, and (iv) is that the development device contacting/separating mechanism restricts the developing device from being moved to the developing device contacting position in a state where the latent-image forming device is moved to the latent-image forming device contacting position.