Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, and more specifically, an image forming apparatus comprises an operation unit having at least a touch panel display on an upper surface thereof in a front side of an image reading portion.
Description of the Related Art
An example of a conventional image forming apparatus is disclosed in Japanese patent application laying-open No. 2011-170070 [G03G 21/00, H04M 11/00, B41J 29/00, B41J 29/38] (Literature 1) laid-open on Sep. 1, 2011. An image forming apparatus disclosed in the literature 1 comprises an operation unit provided in a front side of an image reading portion, and a touch panel display (touch sensitive key) and hardware keys such as a power key, a power saving key, a home key, a ten key, etc. are provided on an upper surface of this operation unit. If various kinds of operation keys are arranged on a single operation unit as the image forming apparatus of the literature 1, the power key is indistinguishable from other operation keys, and it is hard to recognize importance of the power key. Accordingly, there is an occasion that a user operates the power key carelessly (unconsciously) in a series of flows to operate other operation keys such as the touch panel display. When the power key is operated by mistake, it is inconvenient because it takes time until the apparatus is rebooted.
On the other hand, another example of an image forming apparatus comprising an operation device provided in a front side of an image reading portion is disclosed in Japanese patent application laying-open No. 2014-112353 [G06F 3/02, H01H 13/02, H03M 11/04, G06F 3/023, G06F 3/041] (Literature 2) laid-open on Jun. 19, 2014. The operation device provided in the image forming apparatus of the literature 2 has a first operation portion provided in a tiltable manner and a second operation portion fixed in an untiltable manner. Then, the first operation portion is provided with a touch panel display and a home key that is a capacitance type key, and the second operation portion is provided with a power key and a power saving key that are mechanical keys. By thus using a mechanical key for the power key and power saving key that are relatively important keys, and by arranging these mechanical keys to the second operation portion that is fixed and untiltable, an erroneous operation of an important operation key can be prevented.
However, in the image forming apparatus of the literature 2, since the touch panel display, the home key, the power saving key and the power key are arranged to be spread in a lateral direction (left-right direction), the power key cannot enter easily in an effective field of view of a user. Accordingly, there is an occasion that a user is unable to recognize the position of the power key easily.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds