Image forming apparatus and image processing program

Abstract

The present invention provides an image forming apparatus and an image processing program that minimize the appearance of blank spaces at the edges of media with borderless printing. [Solution] It is determined whether or not a blank area exists along one of the multiple sides of the image to be formed on the paper P (S3). If it is determined that a blank area exists (S4, Yes), at least a portion of the remaining part of the image excluding the blank area is enlarged and formed on the entire image forming surface of the paper P (S6). If it is determined that no blank area exists, at least a portion of the original image is enlarged and formed on the entire image forming surface of the paper P.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and an image processing program.

Background Art

[0002] There is sometimes performed borderless printing in which an image is enlarged to a size larger than a medium (printing paper) and then the image is formed on the medium so that no border (blank space) appears at the periphery of the medium. Patent Document 1 describes an example of a printer that performs borderless printing.

Prior Art Documents

Patent Documents

[0003]

Patent Document 1

Summary of the Invention

Problems to be Solved by the Invention

[0004] A wide blank space may be formed in a direction orthogonal to at least one of a plurality of sides constituting the periphery of an image, such as when the aspect ratio of the original image is significantly different from the aspect ratio of the printing paper. In such a case, even if the image is enlarged by borderless printing, the blank space is likely to appear at the periphery of the medium.

[0005] An object of the present invention is to provide an image forming apparatus and an image processing program in which a blank space is unlikely to appear at the periphery of a medium on which borderless printing has been performed.

Means for Solving the Problems

[0006] The image forming apparatus of the present invention comprises an image data acquisition unit that acquires image data from an external device, an image forming unit that performs an image forming operation to form an image on a medium indicated by the image data, and a control unit. The control unit performs a determination process to determine whether or not a blank area exists, which is a region in which blank spaces are continuous along any one of a plurality of sides of the image; a first image forming process that, if the determination process determines that a blank area exists, causes the image forming unit to perform the image forming operation so that at least a part of the remaining portion of the image, excluding the blank area, is enlarged and formed on the entire image forming surface of the medium; and a second image forming process that, if the determination process determines that a blank area does not exist, causes the image forming unit to perform the image forming operation so that at least a part of the image is enlarged and formed on the entire image forming surface of the medium.

[0007] Furthermore, the image forming program of the present invention is a program that causes a computer capable of communicating with an image forming apparatus to process an image for image forming by the image forming apparatus, and causes the computer to execute: an image data acquisition process to acquire image data; a determination process to determine whether or not there is a blank area, which is a region in which blank spaces are continuous along any one of the multiple sides of the image shown by the image data acquired by the image data acquisition process; a first transmission process to transmit to the image forming apparatus data of an enlarged image, in which, if the determination process determines that the blank area exists, the image forming apparatus enlarges the image so that at least a part of the remaining portion of the image excluding the blank area is formed on the entire image forming surface of the medium; and a second transmission process to transmit to the image forming apparatus the image data acquired in the image acquisition process, if the determination process determines that the blank area does not exist. [Effects of the Invention]

[0008] If blank areas are detected in the image, the image forming operation is performed so that at least a portion of the remaining part of the image, excluding such blank areas, is enlarged and formed across the entire image-forming surface of the medium. Therefore, even if there are blank areas at the edges of the original image, blank areas are less likely to appear at the edges of the medium on which borderless printing has been performed. [Brief explanation of the drawing]

[0009] [Figure 1] This is an overview diagram of a printer according to one embodiment of the present invention. [Figure 2] Figure 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the printer's control system. [Figure 3] This figure shows the ink ejection range during borderless and bordered printing processes performed by the printer shown in Figure 1. [Figure 4] Figure 1 is a conceptual diagram of the image that will be processed by the printer. [Figure 5] This is the screen displayed on the touch panel display in Figure 2, used to switch the borderless image removal process on and off. [Figure 6] Figure 1 is a flowchart showing the processing flow executed by the control unit. [Figure 7] Figure 6 is a conceptual diagram illustrating the image processing performed by the flowchart shown. [Figure 8] This is a conceptual diagram showing the blank areas on all four sides of the image. [Figure 9] This is a block diagram showing the configuration of a PC and printer according to another embodiment of the present invention. [Modes for carrying out the invention]

[0010] [First Embodiment] Hereinafter, a printer 100 according to a first embodiment, which is a preferred embodiment of the present invention, will be described with reference to the drawings. In the following description, the vertical direction is defined based on the state in which the printer 100 is installed for use (the state in Figure 1), the long direction of the housing 100a is defined as the left-right direction in a plan view, and the short direction of the housing 100a is defined as the front-back direction.

[0011] The printer 100 (corresponding to the "image forming apparatus" of the present invention) is a device that forms an image on paper P. As shown in Figure 1, the printer 100 mainly comprises a housing 100a, a transport mechanism 2, a carriage 4, a head 5, a moving mechanism 6, a paper output tray 7, a cartridge mounting section 8, and a control unit 9.

[0012] The transport mechanism 2 supplies the paper P, which is housed in the lower part of the housing 100a, to the head 5 above it. The transport mechanism 2 has transport roller pairs 23 and 24 and a guide section 25. The guide section 25 guides the paper P, which is being transported upward by the rollers located in the lower part of the housing 100a, toward the front.

[0013] The transport roller pairs 23 and 24 are arranged spaced apart from each other in the front-rear direction. Transport roller pair 23 consists of a drive roller that rotates by the drive of transport motor 23a (see Figure 2) and a driven roller that moves along with the drive roller. Transport roller pair 24 consists of a drive roller that rotates by the drive of transport motor 24a (see Figure 2) and a driven roller that moves along with the drive roller. The paper P, guided forward by the guide section 25, is transported further forward by the transport roller pairs 23 and 24.

[0014] The head 5 (corresponding to the "image forming unit" of the present invention) includes a plurality of nozzles 51 formed on its lower surface and a driver IC 52 (see Figure 2). When the driver IC 52 is driven by the control unit 9, ink is ejected from the nozzles 51. The ink reaches the image forming surface of the paper P, which is located at the image recording position opposite the lower surface of the head 5. As the paper P is transported by the transport mechanism 2, the ink from the head 5 adheres to the paper P, thereby forming an image on the image forming surface of the paper P.

[0015] The head 5 is mounted on the carriage 4. The carriage 4 is movable by a moving mechanism 6. The moving mechanism 6 has two guide rails 61 and 62 and a carriage motor 63 (see FIG. 2). The two guide rails 61 and 62 are arranged at intervals in the front-rear direction and each extends in the left-right direction. The carriage 4 is arranged so as to straddle the two guide rails 61 and 62. The carriage 4 is connected to the carriage motor 63 via a belt or the like. When the carriage motor 63 is driven under the control of the control unit 9, the carriage 4 moves in the left-right direction along the guide rails 61 and 62. Hereinafter, the left-right direction in which the carriage 4 moves may be referred to as the main scanning direction, and the front-rear direction in which the paper P is conveyed may be referred to as the sub-scanning direction, respectively.

[0016] The paper P on which an image is formed by the head 5 is discharged to the paper discharge tray 7 by the conveyance mechanism 2. The paper discharge tray 7 is in front of the head 5 in the housing 100a and is arranged at the upper part of the housing 100a.

[0017] The cartridge mounting portion 8 is installed at the right end and the front portion of the housing 100a. The cartridge mounting portion 8 can detachably mount four ink cartridges 8a that store black, yellow, cyan, and magenta inks, respectively. Ink is supplied from the ink cartridges 8a mounted on the cartridge mounting portion 8 to the head 5 via a tube (not shown) or the like.

[0018] The touch panel display 11 (corresponding to the "display" and "user operation unit" of the present invention) displays characters, images, etc. on the screen. Further, when a finger or the like touches the screen, the touch panel display 11 detects the contact position and outputs the detection result to the control unit 9. Thereby, the touch panel display 11 can receive various user inputs.

[0019] The control unit 9 controls the entire printer 100. As shown in Figure 2, the control unit 9 is electrically connected to the display 11, transport motors 23a and 24a, driver IC 52, carriage motor 63, and the like.

[0020] As shown in Figure 2, the control unit 9 includes a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 91, ROM (Read Only Memory) 92, RAM (Random Access Memory) 93, and an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) 94. The ROM 92 stores programs executed by the CPU 91 and ASIC 94, various fixed data, etc. The ROM 92 also includes a writable area consisting of an EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory), etc. Various setting contents are written to this area. The setting contents include information indicating whether the processing based on the presence or absence of a blank area, described later, is on or off. The RAM 93 temporarily stores image data representing the image to be formed on the paper P, and data necessary when the program is executed. Image data is acquired from an external device such as a PC or USB (Universal Serial Bus) memory (corresponding to the function of the "image data acquisition unit" in this invention). The ASIC 94 performs operations such as rewriting the data in the RAM 93.

[0021] Furthermore, the control unit 9 may perform various processes solely with the CPU 91, solely with the ASIC 94, or collaboratively with the CPU 91 and ASIC 94. Also, the control unit 9 may be performed by a single CPU 91, or by multiple CPUs 91 sharing the processing. Similarly, the control unit 9 may be performed by a single ASIC 94, or by multiple ASICs 94 sharing the processing. The various processes performed by the control unit 9 will now be described.

[0022] The control unit 9 performs image forming processing. During image forming processing, the drives of the transport motors 23a and 24a and the carriage motor 63 are controlled so that the paper P is fed to the head 5, and ink is ejected from the head 5 at appropriate positions and timings. This makes the operation of the head 5 to form the image represented by one image data on the paper P a single image forming operation.

[0023] The image forming process according to this embodiment includes bordered and borderless processing. As shown in Figure 3, in bordered processing, ink from the head 5 is ejected towards the ink ejection range A set within the paper P. The ink ejection range A matches the size of the image indicated by the image data. In contrast, in borderless processing, the image is enlarged to a size larger than the size of the image indicated by the image data, and ink is ejected towards the ink ejection range B corresponding to the size of the enlarged image. The ink ejection range B is set to span the paper P in both the main scanning direction (hereinafter also referred to as the horizontal direction) and the sub-scanning direction (hereinafter also referred to as the vertical direction). In this way, by ejecting ink over an area larger than the paper P, borderless printing is possible, in which an image can be formed without gaps across the entire image forming surface of the paper P.

[0024] Incidentally, as shown in image 101 of Figure 4, there are cases where a relatively wide blank area is included along one of the four sides of the image data. When borderless printing is performed on such images, even if the original image is enlarged to some extent, there is a risk that the aforementioned blank area will remain wide on the paper P.

[0025] Therefore, in this embodiment, if there is a blank area in the original image, the remaining portion excluding the blank area is enlarged, and a borderless process is performed so that a part of it is formed on the entire sheet of paper P (corresponding to the "first image forming process" of the present invention). As a result, even if there is a blank area in the original image, borderless printing is performed based on the remaining portion excluding the blank area, making it less likely for blanks to appear on the periphery of the sheet of paper P after image formation.

[0026] In this embodiment, the blank area refers to a region where, as shown in Figure 4, a line of blank spaces, each the size of one dot, is continuous in the horizontal direction, and this line is continuous for at least M lines (M: a natural number) in the vertical direction. In this embodiment, as a result of removing the blank area from the image, a region of N lines (N: 0 or a natural number less than M) in the vertical direction may remain in the image.

[0027] Furthermore, blank areas may exist along multiple sides of an image. Figure 4 shows a case where blank areas exist along both the top and bottom edges of an image. Such multiple blank areas occur, for example, when the aspect ratio of the area containing colored pixel values ​​in the image differs from the aspect ratio of the paper P. In this case, borderless processing is performed so that a portion of the remaining area, excluding all blank areas, is enlarged and formed across the entire image-forming surface of the paper P.

[0028] If there are no blank areas in the original image, the image data is simply enlarged, and a portion of it is formed across the entire image-forming surface of the paper P (corresponding to the "second image forming process" of the present invention). Because the image does not originally contain any blank areas, the image is simply enlarged, and a portion of it is formed across the entire image-forming surface of the paper P, making it less likely for blank areas to appear at the edges of the paper P.

[0029] The control unit 9 switches the borderless processing (hereinafter referred to as "borderless processing with blank areas removed") on and off according to user input via the touch panel display 11. For example, the control unit 9 displays the control image shown in Figure 5 on the touch panel display 11. This control image includes button images B1 and B2 that can be selected by touching the screen with a finger or the like. When button image B1 is selected while borderless processing with blank areas removed is off, the borderless processing with blank areas removed is switched on, and when button image B2 is selected while borderless processing with blank areas removed is on, the borderless processing with blank areas removed is switched off (corresponding to the "switching process" of the present invention). Information indicating whether borderless processing with blank areas removed is on or off is stored in the ROM 92.

[0030] The detailed flow of the image formation process performed by the control unit 9 will be explained below with reference to Figure 6. First, the control unit 9 determines whether or not the image data includes a borderless setting (S1; this corresponds to the "determination process" in this invention). If it is determined that the image data does not include a borderless setting (S1, No), the control unit 9 performs the border processing (S7). Then, the series of processes is completed.

[0031] If the control unit 9 determines that the image data includes a borderless setting (S1, Yes), it determines whether the whitespace removal borderless processing is turned on (S2). If it determines that the whitespace removal borderless processing is turned off (S2, No), the control unit 9 executes the borderless processing in S8 without changing the content of the image. Then the series of processes is completed.

[0032] If it is determined that the borderless image removal process is turned on (S2, Yes), the control unit 9 checks whether a blank area exists on at least one of the four sides of the image indicated by the image data (S3). Specifically, the control unit 9 checks for each side of the image whether a blank area consisting of M lines of blank space as shown in Figure 4 exists.

[0033] If the control unit 9 determines, as a result of processing in S3, that blank areas exist (S4, Yes), it determines whether the total magnification from the original image due to the magnification process in S6 is less than a predetermined threshold (S5). The predetermined threshold is set to a value such that if the total magnification exceeds this value, the quality of the image formed on the paper P deteriorates too much. If the control unit 9 determines that the total magnification from the original image is not less than the predetermined threshold (i.e., greater than or equal to the predetermined threshold) (S5, No), it executes the process in S8. If the control unit 9 determines that the total magnification from the original image is less than the predetermined threshold (S5, Yes), it magnifies the image at a predetermined magnification and crops an area of ​​the same size as the original image from the magnified image (S6). The predetermined magnification is, for example, a magnification such that the blank areas corresponding to the M lines at the top and bottom edges of the image are exactly removed from the cropped image. The predetermined threshold and the predetermined magnification are related in such a way that, for example, if the magnification at the predetermined magnification is repeated multiple times, the total magnification from the original image will exceed the predetermined threshold.

[0034] Figure 7 shows the process of applying S6 to an image. Image 101 is the original image, which contains blank spaces of X lines (X: a natural number greater than M) at the top and bottom edges. Image 102 is an image that has been enlarged once from Image 101 at a predetermined magnification. Image 102' shows an image formed by cutting out a region of the same size as the original image from Image 102. Image 102' shows that M lines of blank space have been removed from the X-line blank space that existed in Image 101.

[0035] Returning to Figure 6, after processing in S6, the control unit 9 executes the processing from S3. That is, if there is still a blank area, i.e., a blank area equivalent to M lines, in the image after processing in S6 (S4, Yes), as long as the magnification of the original image is less than a predetermined threshold (S5, Yes), the repeated image is magnified by a predetermined magnification and cropped to the size of the original image (S6). On the other hand, if it is determined that there is no blank area in the image (S4, No), the control unit 9 performs borderless processing based on that image (S8).

[0036] If the borderless processing for removing blank spaces is enabled, in S8, the borderless processing is performed based on one of the following: (1) the original image in which no blank areas exist, (2) the image in which blank areas have been removed from the original image by executing S6 once or more times, or (3) the image in which the magnification from the original image exceeds a predetermined threshold by executing S6 multiple times. In particular, with borderless processing based on image (2), the remaining image from which the blank areas have been removed from the original image is magnified, and a part of it is formed to cover the entire sheet of paper P. After processing in S8, the series of processes is completed.

[0037] Image 103 in Figure 7 shows the image obtained by repeating the S6 process n times (n: a natural number) to remove all blank areas from Image 101. Blank areas the size of the Y line remain at the top and bottom edges of Image 103, but Y (=Xn*M) is less than M.

[0038] Furthermore, to allow the user to check the print content in advance, a preview image of the borderless print (for example, image 103 in Figure 7) may be displayed on the touch panel display 11 before the borderless processing in S8 is performed. This allows the user to confirm through the display on the touch panel display 11 that at least a portion of the remaining part of the original image, excluding the blank area, is enlarged and formed on the entire image-forming surface of the paper P.

[0039] According to the embodiment described above, if it is determined that there is a blank area in the image, the image forming operation is performed such that at least a portion of the remaining part of the image after removing such blank areas is enlarged and formed on the entire image forming surface of the paper P. Therefore, even if there is a blank area at the edge of the original image, blanks are less likely to appear at the edge of the paper P on which borderless printing has been performed.

[0040] Furthermore, according to the above embodiment, the image is enlarged repeatedly until it is determined that there are no blank areas in the image, as long as the total enlargement ratio from the original image does not exceed a predetermined threshold. Therefore, the original image is enlarged at an enlargement ratio that eliminates blank areas, as long as the quality of the image formed on the paper P does not deteriorate too much.

[0041] Furthermore, even if there are multiple blank areas along each of the multiple sides of the image, at least a portion of the remaining area after removing all the blank areas from the image is enlarged and formed across the entire image-forming surface of the paper P. This reliably reduces the appearance of blank spaces at the periphery of the medium after borderless printing.

[0042] Furthermore, if it is determined in S4 of Figure 6 that there are no blank areas after the magnification process at a predetermined magnification ratio, the magnification process at a predetermined magnification ratio may be performed one or more times. This corresponds, for example, to the case in Figure 7 where image 103 is obtained after several magnification processes from image 101, and then one or more further magnification processes are performed. This more reliably reduces the appearance of blank areas at the edges of the paper P after borderless printing.

[0043] Furthermore, instead of the flowchart in Figure 6, the image may be enlarged in a single enlargement process for each image formation operation, at a magnification such that no blank areas remain after one enlargement. For example, as shown in Figure 8, suppose there is a blank area of ​​width t along the top edge of the image, a blank area of ​​width b along the bottom edge of the image, a blank area of ​​width l along the left edge of the image, and a blank area of ​​width r along the right edge of the image. Also, let the width of the image be width and the height be height. In this case, in order for all blank areas to disappear with a single enlargement process, the image should be enlarged using the largest value among R1 to R4 shown in Equation 1 below as the magnification. [Formula 1] R1 = (width / 2) / (width / 2 - l) R2 = (width / 2) / (width / 2 - r) R3 = (height / 2) / (height / 2 - t) R4 = (height / 2) / (height / 2 - b)

[0044] According to this, even if blank areas exist along multiple edges of the image, image data is generated in one enlargement process per image forming operation, such that at least a portion of the remaining part excluding the blank areas is enlarged and formed across the entire image forming surface of paper P. Furthermore, the enlargement ratio in this case is appropriately calculated based on the width of the blank area, as shown in Equation 1 above.

[0045] [Second Embodiment] Hereinafter, a PC210 and printer220 according to a second embodiment, which is another embodiment of the present invention, will be described with reference to Figure 9. The PC210 and printer220 are capable of data communication with each other. The PC210 is equipped with hardware such as a CPU, a memory device including ROM and RAM, and a storage device. The RAM stores a program that causes the above hardware to function as a first driver unit 211 and a second driver unit 212. The program that causes the above hardware to function as the first driver unit 211 corresponds to the "another program" of the present invention. The program that causes the above hardware to function as the second driver unit 212 corresponds to the "image processing program" of the present invention. The printer220 has a hardware configuration similar to the printer100 according to the first embodiment, but its software configuration includes a program that performs conventional borderless printing.

[0046] The first driver unit 211 of the PC210 generates image data A showing an image (for example, image 101 in Figure 7) in which a blank area similar to that of the first embodiment exists along at least one edge. The second driver unit 212 acquires image data A from the first driver unit 211 (corresponding to the "image data acquisition process" of the present invention). Next, the second driver unit 212 processes the image data A to generate image data B (for example, image 103 in Figure 7) and sends it to the printer 220 (corresponding to the "first transmission process" of the present invention), or sends image data A as is to the printer 220 (corresponding to the "second transmission process" of the present invention). The printer 220 performs conventional borderless printing based on image data A or B from the PC210.

[0047] The details of the processing performed by the second driver unit 212 of PC210 are as follows: The second driver unit 212 determines whether or not a blank area exists along any one side of the image shown by image data A (corresponding to the "determination process" of the present invention).

[0048] If the second driver unit 212 determines that there are blank areas in the image data A, it generates image data B, which is an enlarged version of the image data A, so that in borderless printing by the printer 220, at least a portion of the remaining part of the image data A, excluding the blank areas, is enlarged to form the entire sheet of paper P. This process may be the same as the process shown in the flowchart of Figure 5, or it may be the same as a single enlargement process based on the above formula 1. Image data B is sent to the printer 220 as described above.

[0049] If the second driver unit 212 determines that there are no blank areas in the image data A, it sends the image data A to the printer 220 as is, without processing it.

[0050] According to this embodiment, similar to the first embodiment, even if there is a blank area at the periphery of the image shown by image data A, the blank area is less likely to appear at the periphery of the paper P on which borderless printing has been performed by the printer 220.

[0051] <Other variations> Although embodiments of the present invention have been described above with reference to the drawings, it should be understood that the specific configurations are not limited to these embodiments. The scope of the present invention is indicated by the claims rather than the above description of embodiments, and all modifications within the meaning and scope equivalent to the claims are included.

[0052] For example, in each of the embodiments described above, it is mainly assumed that blank areas exist along multiple sides of the image. In contrast, it is also possible that only one blank area exists along one side of the image.

[0053] Furthermore, according to the first embodiment described above, when the process S6 in Figure 6 is executed repeatedly, the image is enlarged by a constant magnification each time. Alternatively, the magnification may change each time the image is enlarged.

[0054] In addition, although the embodiments described above have described the application of the present invention to printers, the invention is not limited thereto. The present invention may also be applied to other inkjet-type image forming apparatuses that eject ink from a head, such as multifunction printers and copiers, or to these image forming apparatuses. Furthermore, it may be applied to laser-type image forming apparatuses that perform image recording processing by attaching toner to printing paper instead of attaching ink to the printing paper using an inkjet method. In this case, a toner cartridge containing toner is detachably mounted on the image forming apparatus. [Explanation of Symbols]

[0055] 2. Conveying mechanism 5 heads 6 Moving mechanism 9. Control Unit 100 Printers

Claims

1. An image data acquisition unit that acquires image data from an external device, An image forming unit that performs an image forming operation to form an image on a medium, It includes a control unit, The control unit, A determination process to determine whether or not there is a blank region, which is a continuous blank area along one of the multiple sides of the aforementioned image, If the determination process determines that the blank area exists, a first image forming process causes the image forming unit to perform the image forming operation such that at least a portion of the remaining part of the image, excluding the blank area, is enlarged and formed on the entire image forming surface of the medium. An image forming apparatus characterized in that, if the determination process determines that there is no blank area, it performs a second image forming process, which causes the image forming unit to perform the image forming operation so that at least a part of the image is enlarged and formed on the entire image forming surface of the medium.

2. The blank region is a region where a blank space of one dot is continuous along one side, forming one line of blank spaces, and this line is continuous for M lines (M: a natural number) in a direction perpendicular to the side. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that the remaining portion of the image after removing the blank area includes a region in which the blank area of ​​one line is continuous for N lines (N: a natural number less than 0 or M) in a direction perpendicular to the side.

3. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that the first image forming process includes a process of enlarging the image once per image forming operation at an enlargement ratio such that at least a portion of the remaining part of the image obtained by removing the blank area from the image is formed on the entire image forming surface of the medium.

4. The first image forming process is: The aforementioned image enlargement process, The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that it includes a repetitive process in which the enlargement process is performed if the blank area exists in the area targeted for the image forming operation in the image enlarged by the most recent enlargement process, and this process is repeated within a range in which the total enlargement ratio from the original image does not exceed a predetermined threshold.

5. The first image forming process is: The image forming apparatus according to claim 4, characterized in that it includes a process of performing the enlargement process at least once after determining that there is no blank area in the area targeted for the image forming operation in the image enlarged by the most recent enlargement process.

6. The first image forming process is: The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that, when blank areas exist along multiple sides of the image, the image forming unit is instructed to perform the image forming operation such that at least a portion of the remaining portion after removing all the blank areas along the multiple sides from the image is enlarged to form the entire image forming surface of the medium.

7. The image forming apparatus according to claim 6, characterized in that the first image forming process includes a process of enlarging the image once per image forming operation at a magnification ratio such that at least a portion of the remaining portion obtained by removing all the blank areas along the plurality of sides from the image is formed on the entire image forming surface of the medium.

8. The image forming apparatus according to claim 3 or 7, characterized in that the first image forming process includes a process for calculating the magnification ratio based on the width of the blank area in a direction perpendicular to one side.

9. It also has a display, The control unit, The image forming apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 7, characterized in that, before performing the image forming operation, it performs a process to display on the display the situation in which at least a portion of the remaining part of the image, excluding the blank area, is enlarged and formed on the entire image forming surface of the medium.

10. It also includes a user control section that accepts user input, The control unit, The user operation unit further performs a switching process to switch the first image forming process between an on state and an off state in response to the operation it receives. The image forming apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 7, characterized in that the first image forming process is executed when the first image forming process is in the ON state.

11. A program that causes a computer capable of communicating with an image forming apparatus to process images for image forming by the image forming apparatus, Image data acquisition process to obtain image data, A determination process to determine whether or not there is a blank region, which is a region of continuous blank space along any one of the multiple sides of the image data obtained by the image data acquisition process, If the determination process determines that the blank area exists, a first transmission process transmits data of the enlarged image to the image forming apparatus so that at least a portion of the remaining part of the image after removing the blank area is enlarged and formed on the entire image forming surface of the medium. An image processing program characterized in that, if the determination process determines that the blank area does not exist, it causes the computer to execute a second transmission process which transmits the image data acquired in the image acquisition process to the image forming apparatus.

12. The image processing program according to claim 11, characterized in that the image data acquired in the image data acquisition process is generated by the computer according to another program.

Images