Unless otherwise indicated herein, the description in this section is not prior art to the claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
It has been proposed that an image forming apparatus configured to perform postprocessing on recording sheets on which image formations have been performed in a plurality of different modes. This image forming apparatus includes an image formation control unit and a communication unit. The image formation control unit controls operation of respective units of the image forming apparatus. The communication unit communicates with a postprocessing device connected to the image forming apparatus. The postprocessing device performs a staple process and a matching process on the recording sheets as the postprocessing. The image formation control unit communicates with the postprocessing device after the mode of the postprocessing is changed, thus determining whether initialization of the postprocessing device is necessary or not. The image formation control unit calculates an initialization time when the initialization is determined to be necessary. The image formation control unit controls an image forming operation based on the calculated initialization time and a preliminarily determined reference time.