Patent ID: 7983594

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a housing; a transport belt arranged in the housing, the transport belt having a sheet transport face configured to be brought into contact with a back face of a sheet and being configured to rotate to transport the sheet along the sheet transport face; an image forming portion of an electrophotographic type configured to engage a front face side of the sheet transported along the sheet transport face in the housing, the image forming portion being configured to form a toner image on the front face of the sheet, and to define on the front face of the sheet an image formation outside region in which the toner image is not formed; a fixing unit arranged in the housing at a downstream side of the sheet transport face of the transport belt in a sheet transport direction and configured to fix the toner image to the sheet; and a deposit portion configured to receive toner waste deposits, wherein the fixing unit includes a heating roller configured to be driven to rotate in contact with the front face of the sheet, and a pressure roller configured to press against the heating roller from the back face side of the sheet and to press the sheet along with the heating roller, wherein the deposit portion is disposed between the image forming portion and the heating roller, wherein the deposit portion is provided with a contact portion, the contact portion is configured to make contact with a portion of the image formation outside region at a trailing edge of the sheet that moves in a direction towards the heating roller by being separated from the sheet transport face of the transport belt, wherein the transport belt is configured to attract the sheet by an electrostatic force; and wherein a nip start position where the heating roller and the pressure roller start to press the sheet is disposed closer to the front face side of the sheet rather than the back face side of the sheet relative to the sheet transport face, wherein relative to a width direction of the sheet; an angle made by a straight line connecting the nip start position and a transport terminal end position at which the trailing edge of the sheet is separated from the transport belt and a straight line connecting the nip start position and the contact portion is defined as α; and an angle made by a tangential line of the heating roller at the nip start position and the straight line connecting the nip start position and the transport terminal end position is defined as β; the angle α is set to a range of 0<α<2×β.