1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image forming system and a discharge method of a recording material in the image forming system.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, an image forming apparatus such as a printer, a copy machine, facsimile, and a multifunctional peripheral having all functions thereof has been widely used. There is a case in which a post-processing apparatus performing post-processing such as a stitching process and a folding process on a recording material (a paper and the like) with a formed image is connected to the image forming apparatus. Combinations of the image forming apparatus and the post-processing apparatus are changed in response to use purposes. Furthermore, there is also a case in which a plurality of post-processing apparatuses are connected to one image forming apparatus. Hereinafter, a system including an image forming apparatus and at least one post-processing apparatus will be referred to as an image forming system.
In recent years, when conveyance abnormality such as jam occurs in a post-processing apparatus, an image forming system temporarily withdraws a recording material being conveyed in an image forming apparatus and the like to a predetermined position, and automatically discharges the withdrawn recording material after a recording material having caused the conveyance abnormality is removed. A technology (a function) of discharging the recording material as described above is called a purge process (called “automatic purge” or simply “purge”) as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2010-224305. The purge process is performed, so that a task of a user for removing a recording material remaining in the image forming system is reduced.
In general specifications of the purge process, a recording material having caused conveyance abnormality is removed, and then the purge process is automatically started. Therefore, it is necessary to register a discharge destination (indicating a paper discharge tray and hereinafter, also referred to as a “discharge unit”) of the recording material in advance.
However, all users do not know a discharge destination of a recording material at the time of the purge process. Therefore, although the purge process has been performed, a user may not recognize that the recording material has been discharged and may forget it.
Furthermore, even when a user can specify the discharge destination of the recording material, if a plurality of post-processing apparatuses have been connected, the discharge destination may also be remote from the position of the user who is performing a task of removing the recording material. In this case, since the user needs to go for the recording material up to the discharge destination, it becomes a troublesome task.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds