Patent ID: 6915090

Claim:
An image forming apparatus, comprising: a plurality of color cartridges, each of the color cartridges supplying a color toner; a monochrome cartridge that supplies monochrome toner; an image formation unit configured to form an image on an image-transferring member using at least one of the plurality of color toners and the monochrome toner; and a processor electrically coupled to the image formation unit, the processor configured to: determine whether the plurality of color cartridges contain insufficient color toner for printing an image according to a first image job; queue a second image job, the second image job not requiring the plurality of color cartridges, before the first image job requiring the plurality of color cartridges if the plurality of color cartridges contain insufficient color toner for printing the image of the first image job; and control the image formation unit to form images in accordance with the queue, wherein the processor is configured to determine whether at least one of the plurality of color cartridges contains insufficient color toner for printing the image according to the first image job, and to queue the second image job not requiring the at least one of the plurality of color cartridges before the first image job, and the processor is further programmed to query a user whether to continue printing image jobs not requiring the at least one of the plurality of color cartridges, and wherein the processor is programmed to control the image formation unit so as to continue printing image jobs not requiring the at least one of the plurality of color cartridges if the user query is positive.