JP2012185355A - Image formation device and fixation control method - Google Patents

Abstract

An image forming apparatus and a fixing control method for optimizing power required for fixing.
An image forming apparatus having an energy saving mode and a normal operation mode receives data of a print job to be printed from an external apparatus, counts page breaks of the data, and determines the number of pages requested by the job. A job information analysis unit 206 that generates the page number information to be included; an engine control unit 212 that receives the page number information generated by the job information analysis unit 206 before the content of the data and determines the fixing temperature; and engine control And a fixing control unit 230 for controlling the fixing temperature to the fixing temperature determined by the means 212.
[Selection] Figure 2

Description

  The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, and more particularly, to an image forming apparatus and a fixing control method for optimizing electric power required for fixing.

  In an electrophotographic image forming apparatus, an electrostatic latent image is developed with a developer made of a thermoplastic resin as a developer, transferred to a sheet, and then the developer is heated and pressed together with the sheet to provide a robust printed matter. This process is called a fixing process, and a fixing heater using mainly resistance heating is used for the fixing process. A fixing heater used for fixing usually requires a large amount of electric power in order to perform heat fusion firmly in a short time. The amount of power required depends on the fixing temperature, and if the fixing temperature can be lowered, power consumption can be suppressed. On the other hand, the fixing temperature depends not only on factors such as the characteristics of the developer such as paper type and toner, but also on the factor of temperature decrease when printing paper at room temperature enters the fixing roller.

  Conventionally, energy saving driving of an image forming apparatus has been studied. For example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-15461 (Patent Document 1), depending on the type of toner of different color tone / type of different paper / thickness of different paper. And a fixing device capable of optimally maintaining the amount of heat supplied to the paper without stopping the fixing operation even when the temperature of the fixing roller decreases during image output. Has been. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-260185 (Patent Document 2) predicts the optimum timing of warm-up performed before printing from input data, so that the optimum timing is always obtained regardless of the type of data and the user's operation method. Describes an image recording apparatus that starts warm-up and improves the first print, reduces unnecessary idling, extends the life of the drum, and reduces power consumption. Further, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-296391 (Patent Document 3), the image processing is performed with the CPU operating frequency lowered within the return time until the printable state is reached, and the consumption when returning from the power saving state. An image forming apparatus capable of reducing power is described.

  However, Patent Document 1 controls the fixing temperature in consideration of the characteristics of the toner, but does not perform the fixing temperature control according to the number of printed pages. Further, Patent Document 2 performs power saving control in consideration of the start timing of the image forming engine, and does not perform fixing control in consideration of the number of printed pages. Further, Patent Document 3 achieves energy saving by controlling the operating frequency of the CPU based on the number of pages of the print job, but is not intended to save energy by controlling the fixing temperature.

  The present invention pays attention to the possibility that the heat supply to the fixing roller, that is, the power supply may change depending on the number of printed pages that must be printed in one print job in the control of the fixing temperature. An object of the present invention is to provide an image forming apparatus that performs optimum fixing temperature control in accordance with the number of printed pages in printing upon returning from the mode.

In the present invention, in order to solve the above-described modification, print information is transferred from the controller to the engine at an optimal timing at which a fixing temperature corresponding to the number of printed pages is given. More specifically, in the present invention, the number of pages to be printed in one continuous printing is analyzed by spring processing, and the page number information is notified to the engine side before the fixing temperature reaches the set value. Therefore, when printing a small number of pages such as one page, it is predicted that the temperature can be lowered within an allowable range even if the fixing temperature is low to some extent, and a lower fixing allowable temperature is set compared to printing a large number of continuous pages. Then, energy saving is realized by starting printing.

Hardware functional block diagram of the image forming apparatus 100 of the present embodiment FIG. 2 is a software block diagram of the image forming apparatus 100 of the present embodiment. FIG. 3 is a sequence diagram of image forming processing of the image forming apparatus 100 of the present embodiment. 2 is an overall flowchart of a job information analysis unit 206 according to the present embodiment. 10 is a flowchart of processing in the second embodiment of the job information analysis unit 206; An embodiment of a lookup table 600 used for fixing control of the present embodiment. 5 is a flowchart of fixing control processing executed by an engine control unit 212 according to the present embodiment. 5 is a fixing temperature profile of fixing control according to the present embodiment. Embodiment of GUI900 which the printer driver 220 of this embodiment displays.

  Hereinafter, although this invention is demonstrated with embodiment, this invention is not limited to embodiment mentioned later. FIG. 1 is a hardware functional block diagram of the image forming apparatus 100 of the present embodiment. The image forming apparatus 100 includes an image forming control unit 110, a print engine 170, an operation panel 180, and a hard disk device 190 in an area indicated by a broken line in FIG. The image forming control unit 110 receives electronic data created by the user in the PC 160 from a PC 160 such as a personal computer or a workstation (hereinafter simply referred to as a PC) connected via a network, and performs various image processing. Execute, and send data to the print engine 170 to instruct image formation. The print engine 170 receives data from the image forming control unit 110 and outputs a printed matter corresponding to the electronic data.

  More specifically, the image forming apparatus 100 includes a CPU 112, a ROM 114, a RAM 116, and an NVRAM 118. The CPU 112 can be configured as an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) configured to enable image formation of the image forming apparatus 100, reads a control program, execution data, and the like stored in the ROM 114, and print engine 170 performs various processes for printing.

  The RAM 116 provides a runtime execution space for enabling the processing of the CPU 112, and the CPU 112 writes runtime data and variables generated by executing the program to the RAM 116 in a timely manner, and fetches the runtime data and variables from the RAM 116. Thus, processing of the image forming apparatus 100 is enabled. The NVRAM 118 is a non-volatile memory that stores values for continuous control according to the present embodiment, among runtime data and variables necessary for image forming processing of the image forming apparatus 100.

  The image forming apparatus 100 further includes a network I / F 130, an engine I / F 140, a panel I / F 150, and a storage device I / F 120. The network I / F 130 provides functions of a physical layer and a network layer for connecting to a LAN (Local Area Network) or the like, and electronic data transferred according to a protocol such as Ethernet (registered trademark) or FTTH, for example, TCP It is possible to transmit / receive to / from the PC 160 under a transaction protocol such as / IP or UDP / IP.

  The engine I / F 140 performs processing for sending data generated from the electronic data by the image forming control unit 110 to the print engine 170. For example, a bus interface such as PCI, CompactPCI, PCIExpress, USB (Universal Serial Bus), IEEE1396, etc. Or it can be implemented as any other suitable interface. The panel I / F 150 receives a control signal from the operation panel 180 used for performing various settings for the image forming control unit 110, decodes the control signal into a code that can be interpreted by the image forming control unit 110, User input via the operation panel 180 and output of the processing result of the CPU 112 are enabled for the CPU 112.

  In another mounting form of the present embodiment, the operation panel 180 can be configured as a display such as a CRT, LCD, PD, and an input / output device such as a keyboard / mouse. The functional units described above are connected to each other via an internal bus (system bus and I / O bus) 192 to enable the image forming control unit 110 to perform processing. The storage device I / F 120 performs data transfer with an external storage device, specifically, a large-capacity hard disk device 190, a USB memory, or the like. ULTRA-ATA, SERIAL-ATA, USB 2.0 For example, an interface using an appropriate protocol can be used.

  The PC 160 sends electronic data to the image forming apparatus 100 and causes the print engine 170 to output a printed matter corresponding to the electronic data. The PC 160 is mounted with a CPU, a RAM, a ROM, a hard disk device, and the like, and operates a word processor, graphics, draw, CAD, and other applications under an appropriate operating system (OS) to create a document. When the PC 160 requests the image forming apparatus 100 to print, the PC 160 displays a print wizard provided by the printer driver on the desktop screen. The user performs various settings from the print wizard, and after completing the settings, performs a predetermined mouse event on the “OK” button icon to start processing for the printer driver to print electronic data. To do. The electronic data is converted into data corresponding to the electronic data through processing such as rasterization and spring, and is sent to the image forming apparatus 100.

  Since the printer driver is not the gist of the present invention, a detailed description thereof will be omitted, but generally, a page description language: PDL (Page Description Language) is added to electronic data, rasterization of image data, spool processing, and image formation are performed. For example, sending of data created to an address on the network of the device 100 is executed. In the present embodiment, a control signal for performing fixing temperature control can be added to data by setting by a user via a graphical user interface (GUI) provided by the printer driver. Hereinafter, the control signal described above is referred to as image forming color information.

  Upon receiving the data, the image forming apparatus 100 interprets the PDL, creates page data in a format that can be printed by the image forming apparatus 100, and starts executing printing. In this embodiment, when the image forming apparatus 100 receives the data, the image forming color information is extracted from the data, and the image forming color information is sent to the print engine 170 during the period in which the image forming apparatus 100 is generating page data. Then, fixing temperature control is started according to the image forming color information.

  FIG. 2 is a software block diagram of the image forming apparatus 100 of the present embodiment. Each functional block shown in FIG. 2 is realized on the image forming apparatus 100 by causing a hardware resource to function as a functional unit of the image forming apparatus 100 by a CPU executing a program. The image forming control unit 110 of the image forming apparatus 100 includes a printer control unit 208 and an image analysis unit 202. In addition, the image forming control unit 110 includes a network I / F 130, a panel I / F 150, and an engine I / F 140. These I / Fs 130 to 150 execute the interface processing described above according to a known protocol. Therefore, detailed description is omitted.

  FIG. 2 shows a printer driver 220 included in the PC 160. The printer driver 220 performs processing such as rasterization on electronic data in response to a user command to create data, and image formation control. To part 110.

  The printer control unit 208 manages processing of the entire image formation control unit 110 and executes control of data acquisition, data transmission, various notifications, the image analysis unit 202, the print data holding unit 204, the job information analysis unit 206, and the like. The image analysis unit 202 has a function of analyzing data sent from the PC 160, interprets the PDL, causes the printer control unit 208 to generate page data, and sends the generated page data to the print engine 170. Send it.

  Further, the print data holding unit 204 of the image forming control unit 110 finishes the image analysis in the image analysis unit 202 and the page number analysis process in the job information analysis unit 206 for the data sent from the network I / F 130, and the print engine 170. Provides a buffer mechanism that holds data until it is sent to The job information analysis unit 206 analyzes data related to the print job, counts the number of pages to be printed, generates page number information, and sends the page number information to the print engine 170 prior to sending the data. According to the present embodiment, the fixing temperature is set.

  The image analysis unit 202 according to the present exemplary embodiment acquires information described in an area describing PDL such as header information and image forming color information of data before starting page processing, and sends the information to the print engine 170 to send it to the fixing device. Enables temperature control based on the image forming color. Note that if the image forming color information cannot be detected in the predetermined data area, the image analyzing unit 202 can send the image forming color information as blank, for example, or can explicitly send the image forming color information. Information notifying that there is no data can be sent to the print engine 170.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the print engine 170 of the image forming apparatus 100 includes a control unit I / F 210, an engine control unit 212, and a fixing control unit 230. The control unit I / F 210 has a function of receiving page data sent from the engine I / F 140 and passing it to the engine control unit 212, and includes a suitable bus interface corresponding to the engine I / F 140. be able to. The engine control unit 212 has a function of controlling the operation of each functional unit such as latent image formation, transfer, conveyance, and fixing of the print engine 170, and can include an ASIC dedicated to the print engine 170. The fixing control of this embodiment is possible.

  When the engine control unit 212 receives image forming color information and page number information for each page of the print job from the image forming control unit 110, the engine control unit 212 notifies the fixing control unit 230 of the image forming color information and page number information of the page. To do. When the fixing control unit 230 receives the image forming color information and the page number information from the engine control unit 212, the fixing control unit 230 acquires the fixing temperature corresponding to the image forming color information and the page number information by referring to the lookup table. The temperature rise control of the fixing roller 240 is executed at the fixing temperature thus obtained.

  More specifically, the fixing control unit 230 includes a fixing temperature monitoring unit 232 and a fixing temperature setting unit 234. The fixing temperature monitoring unit 232 acquires the temperature value of the fixing roller 240 detected by the temperature sensor 242. The fixing temperature setting unit 234 is notified, and the energization control to the fixing roller 240 is performed in response to the comparison determination between the fixing temperature value for fixing by the fixing temperature setting unit 234 and the current fixing roller temperature. Do. The fixing temperature setting unit 234 uses each information acquired from the engine control unit 212 to acquire a fixing temperature value to be used in the fixing process of the current job, and enables the fixing temperature monitoring unit 232 to control the temperature. Yes.

  Therefore, the fixing control unit 230 can be configured to include the NVRAM 236, and a lookup table used for temperature control is stored in the NVRAM 236 and provided for processing of the fixing control unit 230. Note that the NVRAM 236 can be shared with the NVRAM 118 of the image forming control unit 110 if it can be shared.

  FIG. 3 is a sequence diagram of the image forming process of the image forming apparatus 100 according to the present embodiment. In the image forming process of the image forming apparatus 100, the print data holding unit 204 of the image forming control unit 110 stores the data sent by the printer driver 220 in step S300. The image analysis unit 202 analyzes the data stored in the print data holding unit 204 with reference to the PDL, extracts image formation color information in units of pages from the job information, and the job information analysis unit 206 displays the data page. Analyzing the structure and generating page number information. When the creation of the image forming color information and the page number information is completed, a page generation request is sent to the image forming control unit 110 in step S301. Upon receipt of the request, the image formation control unit 110 asserts a WakeUp signal that is a signal for turning on the fixing device in step S302 and notifies the engine control unit 212 of the assertion.

  When the assertion of the WakeUp signal is notified, the engine control unit 212 notifies the fixing control unit 230 of the fixing ON in step S303, starts the fixing heater temperature control sequence according to the present embodiment, and starts from the energy saving mode. Preparation for the printing process is started.

  In step S304, the image forming control unit 110 notifies the engine control unit 212 of a print preparation request. The print preparation request includes an application ID, which is a unique identification value for identifying which print application is used, image forming color information, and page number information. The engine control unit 212 refers to the received application ID, calls a module of the print execution program, and notifies the fixing control unit 230 of image forming color information and page number information in step S305.

  The fixing control unit 230 determines a fixing temperature under the current printing conditions by referring to the lookup table from the image forming color information and the page number information, and uses the determined fixing temperature as the target temperature of the current temperature control sequence. Set and start heating. When the fixing temperature reaches the target temperature, in step S306, the engine control unit 212 is notified that the temperature increase has been completed. Upon receiving the notification, the engine control unit 212 asserts a Ready signal and notifies the image forming control unit 110 in step S307. Upon receipt of the Ready signal, the image formation control unit 110 notifies the engine control unit 212 of the print setting in step S308, and then sends the print start together with the data in step S309 to start the printing process.

  Note that the designation of the print tray, the paper type, the print paper size, and the like are included in the data area describing the print attributes of the data received in step S300. Therefore, in addition to the color mode (full color or monochrome) at the time of printing as a print attribute, the target temperature can be set including attributes that affect the fixing temperature, such as paper type, paper thickness, and printing speed.

  FIG. 4 shows an overall flowchart of the job information analysis unit 206 of the present embodiment. The processing in FIG. 4 starts from step S400. In step S401, the job information analysis unit 206 analyzes data and analyzes PDL included in the data. In step S402, the print job setting of the data is acquired. In step S403, it is determined whether or not the analysis has been completed to the end of the data. If the analysis has not been completed to the end of the data (no), in step S405. When the page break is detected, the value of the page counter is incremented, and the process returns to step S403 again to execute the page count to the end of the data.

  On the other hand, when the analysis is completed to the end of the data in step S403 (yes), the page count of the job is confirmed in step S404, the cage count value determined in step S406 is determined as the page number information, and step S407 is performed. End the process.

  FIG. 5 shows a flowchart of processing in the second embodiment of the job information analysis unit 206. The processing of FIG. 5 is an embodiment in which information indicating whether the number of pages is equal to or greater than a set value set as a threshold is set as page number information. The processing in FIG. 5 starts from step S500, data is analyzed in step S501, and print job settings are acquired from the data in step S502. In step S503, it is determined whether the data has been analyzed to the end. If the analysis has not been performed to the end (no), a page break is detected in step S504 and accumulated in the page counter. In step S505, it is determined whether the value of the page counter is equal to or greater than the set value. If the analysis is completed to the end (yes), the process proceeds to step S506, and the process returns to step S503 until the analysis is completed to the end. . If it is determined as a result of the determination that the page counter is greater than or equal to the set value (yes), the subsequent processing is skipped, and in step S506, the page number information indicates that the page counter is greater than or equal to the set value. The flag information shown is set, and the job information analysis process ends in step S507.

  The process of FIG. 5 performs normal fixing control when it is necessary to print more pages than the set value when returning from the energy saving energy mode, and from the first page to the set value or less, the normal fixing control is performed. It is possible to perform fixing control in which printing is performed in a fixing mode with low energy consumption, and printing is performed in a fixing mode with minimum energy consumption in one-page printing.

  FIG. 6 shows an embodiment of a lookup table 600 used for fixing control of this embodiment. In the fixing control of the present embodiment, M = 1, 1 <M ≦ Th, Th <M (where Th is described with reference to FIG. 5) where M is the number of pages corresponding to both monochrome printing and color mode printing. Setting value.) In the case of monochrome printing and color printing, the temperature for performing the fixing control is different even for the same number of printed sheets from the viewpoint of toner fusion and color mixing. Since higher temperature setting is performed than in monochrome printing, different target temperature values T1 to T6 are set even for the same number of printed pages. In the present embodiment, only one setting value is set, but the setting value can be set for each application more finely according to the main application of the image forming apparatus such as a facsimile, a printer, and a copying machine.

  FIG. 7 is a flowchart of the fixing control process executed by the engine control unit 212 according to this embodiment. The processing of FIG. 7 starts from step S700. When fixing ON is received in step S701, the engine control unit 212 instructs the fixing control unit 230 to start fixing temperature increase in step S702. The fixing control unit 230 performs temperature increase control to the target temperature set by the lookup table 600 using PWM control or the like.

  In step 703, the current fixing temperature is detected, and in step S704, it is determined whether or not the current temperature ≧ (target temperature−ε) (ε is a value considering temperature overshoot). If it is determined in step S704 that the current temperature is lower than (target temperature−ε) (no), the process returns to step S702 to continue the temperature increase control.

  On the other hand, if the current temperature is equal to or higher than (target temperature−ε) in step S704 (yes), a fixing temperature rise stop command is issued in step S705, and the image forming control unit 110 is fixed in step S706. In response to the Ready signal, conversely, print settings and data are received from the image forming control unit, the paper feed drive system is activated to start printing, and when the print job is completed, a series of controls are performed in step S707. finish.

  FIG. 8 shows a fixing temperature profile of the fixing control according to this embodiment. The image forming apparatus 100 raises the fixing temperature in the period t1, and performs fixing in the color mode after the fixing temperature reaches T5 in the period t2. Thereafter, when the print job is completed and the saving period to the energy saving mode has elapsed, the energization to the fixing heater is stopped at the period t3, and the fixing temperature k1 in the energy saving mode is set. Although k1 is described as being higher than the first temperature in the period t1, k1 may be the same as the first temperature in the period t1.

  Thereafter, when the image forming apparatus 100 receives a print job, the image forming apparatus 100 returns from the energy saving mode, and starts energization control of the fixing heater based on the temperature set as the target temperature at that time. A temperature profile immediately after the energization control is started is indicated by a line 810. Note that the target temperature at this time is a temperature that complies with the energy-saving temperature management set by the user in the printer driver 220, and is the target temperature corresponding to the color mode when the user designates the color printing mode by default setting. On the other hand, when the user designates monochrome printing from the beginning, the target temperature for monochrome printing is set.

  In order to explain this embodiment more clearly, the following description will be made assuming that the current print job has one print and the monochrome print mode. When the number of printed pages is 1, the value of T1 in the look-up table 600 is set as the target temperature, the fixing temperature much lower than the fixing temperature T5 in the normal printing is set to T1, and further shorter than the warm-up time t4. Printing can be started at time t5, and as a result, the time integration amount of the heating energy required for fixing can be much lower than that in the normal operation shown by the line 820. A synergistic effect of printing start and energy saving can be obtained. At this time, the profile of the fixing temperature during the sheet passing period is given by the line 820, and T1 is set so that the fixing temperature is equal to or higher than the minimum fixing temperature kL in the fixing for one sheet even if the temperature is lowered after starting the sheet passing. Therefore, sufficient fixing is possible.

  In the monochrome printing mode, when the number of sheets is equal to or less than the set value, the target fixing temperature is T3. In this case, even if the set number of sheets is passed, T3 is the lowest fixing temperature kL as indicated by the line 822. Since the above is set at a temperature at which it can be guaranteed, sufficient fixing can be achieved. Also in this case, the time until fixing is started is a time t6 that is shorter than the warm-up time t4 in the case of normal printing, and the time integration amount of the required heating energy can be reduced. In the embodiment shown in FIG. 8, the PWM control is stopped after reaching the target temperature. However, in other embodiments, for example, one sheet to a set value or less is set to T1 or T3, respectively. When printing is performed, the fixing temperature control can be performed in the range from T1 to kL or T3 to kL by adjusting the PWM control cycle as compared with the normal operation.

  Further, when the color printing mode is set in the present embodiment, the target temperature is set to T2, T4, and T6, respectively, so that the energy saving effect and the first warm-up can be performed in the color printing as indicated by the line 824. .

  FIG. 9 shows an embodiment of the GUI 900 that the printer driver 220 of this embodiment displays on the desktop screen of the PC 160. In the GUI 900 shown in FIG. 9, a menu tab 910 for selecting various settings and a pull-down list for inputting various settings are provided. For example, it is assumed that the user clicks a pull-down list 920 and defaults printing in the color mode as shown in FIG.

  Further, the GUI 900 is provided with a pull-down list 930 for setting paper feed selection, paper type, paper discharge destination, and the like. The user makes various settings according to the purpose of printing. When the setting is completed, the user clicks an “OK” button 940 to send a print job to the image forming control unit 110 to execute the image forming method of the present embodiment. In the embodiment to be described, since the color mode is set in the setting of the printer driver 220, the value corresponding to the color mode is set as the target temperature in the first page generation request, and the fixing heater Start heating up towards the temperature.

  By the way, in this embodiment, when it is set to apply the fixing corresponding to the number of sheets, for example, when the “number optimization” is set from the pull-down list 950 displayed as the one-click setting icon name and then printing is performed, the present embodiment The fixing control is executed, and energy saving and first warm-up can be achieved.

  As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide an image forming apparatus and a fixing control method capable of creating a printed matter using a fixing temperature corresponding to monochrome printing or color printing in units of pages.

  Although the present embodiment has been described so far, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and other embodiments, additions, changes, deletions, and the like can be conceived by those skilled in the art. It can be changed, and any aspect is within the scope of the present invention as long as the effects and effects of the present invention are exhibited.

  Although the present embodiment has been described so far, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and other embodiments, additions, changes, deletions, and the like can be conceived by those skilled in the art. It can be changed, and any aspect is within the scope of the present invention as long as the effects and effects of the present invention are exhibited.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 100 Image forming apparatus 110 Image formation control part 112 CPU
114 ROM
116 RAM
118, 236 NVRAM
120, 130, 140, 150 I / F
160 PC
170 Print Engine 180 Operation Panel 190 Hard Disk Device 192 Internal Bus 202 Image Analysis Unit 204 Print Data Holding Unit 206 Job Information Analysis Unit 208 Printer Control Unit 210 Control Unit I / F
212 Engine control unit 220 Printer driver 230 Fixing control unit 232 Fixing temperature monitoring unit 234 Fixing temperature setting unit 240 Fixing roller 242 Temperature sensor 600 Look-up table

JP 2003-15461 A JP 2006-260185 A JP 2008-296391 A

Claims (6)

An image forming apparatus having an energy saving mode and a normal operation mode,
Job information analysis means for receiving data of a print job to be printed from an external device, counting page breaks of the data, and generating page number information including the number of pages requested by the print job;
Engine control means for receiving the page number information generated by the job information analysis means and determining the fixing temperature before the content of the data;
An image forming apparatus comprising: a fixing control unit that controls the fixing temperature to the fixing temperature determined by the engine control unit.   The job information analysis unit determines whether or not the number of pages of the print job exceeds a set value. If the number of pages of the print job exceeds the set value, the number of pages exceeding the set value is The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein flag information notifying that there is present is generated and included in the page number information.   The image forming apparatus performs the fixing process at the fixing temperature in the normal operation mode using the page number information, or performs the fixing process at at least one fixing temperature lower than the fixing temperature in the normal operation mode. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the fixing temperature is determined by determining whether to perform the fixing.   The fixing control unit stops the fixing temperature control after reaching at least one fixing temperature lower than the fixing temperature, or controls the temperature at a frequency lower than the fixing temperature control in the normal operation mode. The image forming apparatus according to any one of 1 to 3. A fixing control method in an image forming apparatus having an energy saving mode and a normal operation mode,
Receiving data of a print job to be printed from an external device, counting page breaks of the data, and generating page number information including the number of pages requested by the print job;
Receiving the page number information prior to the content of the data and determining a fixing temperature;
Controlling the fixing temperature to the determined fixing temperature, and
The step of determining the fixing temperature uses the page number information to perform a fixing process at the fixing temperature in the normal operation mode, or at least one fixing temperature lower than the fixing temperature in the normal operation mode. A fixing control method including a step of determining whether to perform fixing processing and determining the fixing temperature.   In the step of determining the fixing temperature, after at least one fixing temperature lower than the fixing temperature is reached, the fixing temperature control is stopped or the temperature is controlled at a frequency lower than the fixing temperature control in the normal operation mode. The fixing control method according to claim 5, comprising steps.