A bookbinding structure for binding a stack of sheets including an elongated substrate having a first surface on which a first, heat activated, adhesive matrix is disposed and a second surface on which a second, pressure activated adhesive is disposed. The first adhesive matrix will be used to binding an edge of the stack so as to form a bound book with no cover. The second adhesive matrix includes first and second spaced-apart segments which extend along the length of the substrate. First and second release liners are disposed over the first and second adhesive segments, with the release liners remaining in place until the stack of sheets have been bound with the bookbinding structure. One of the release liners is manually removed from the bound stack and the stack is positioned in a cover assembly with the edge of the stack being positioned opposite a spine section of the cover assembly. The remaining release liner prevents the cover assembly from prematurely attaching to the stack thereby enabling the user to more easily positioned the stack with in the assembly. The user then forces the cover assembly against the exposed adhesive segment thereby securing part of the cover assembly to the stack. The second release liner is then removed and pressure is applied to that part of the cover assembly opposite the exposed segment thereby completing the binding sequence.

A bookbinding apparatus for producing a booklet by coating an adhesive onto a back side of a bundle of sheets and by pasting a book cover onto the back side of the bundle of sheets, comprises: an oblique cutout portion forming section to form a cutout on an edge of each sheet of the bundle of sheets in such a way that an oblique cutout portion is formed along the width of the back side of the bundle of sheets; a sheet bundle accommodating section to accommodate the bundle of sheets on which the oblique cutout portion is formed; a coating section to coat an adhesive on the back side of the bundle of sheets accommodated in the sheet bundle accommodating section; and a bookbinding section to paste a book cover on the adhesive-coated back side of the bundle of sheets so as to produce the booklet.

Proposed is an image processing apparatus in which the data processing method is changed over in suitable fashion in accordance with job settings when binding is performed. To accomplish this, the image processing apparatus is such that when stored image data is processed, the output format is determined from a job ticket and processing for dividing image data is controlled in accordance with the output format determined. In accordance with the output format determined, the apparatus changes over the output timing of divided page image data.

A notch forming device, comprises a notch forming section to form a notch on an edge of a sheet constituting a sheet bundle to be outputted in accordance with an execution of a job; a shifting section to shift a position of a notch to be formed on a sheet by the notch forming section; and a control section to control the shifting section. When plural sheet bundles are outputted in accordance with the execution of the job, the control section controls the shifting section to make a position of a notch on a leading sheet of each sheet bundle at the same position.

In binding a cover sheet together with a sheet bundle, ever-accurate spine-creasing irrespective of bundle thickness is made possible. A sheet stacker stacks sheets into bundles, an adhesive applicator applies adhesive to a spine part of the sheet bundles, and a cover-sheet binder binds cover sheets together with the spine parts. The cover-sheet binder is constituted from a left-and-right pair of spine-creasing press members arranged free to shift between standby and spine-creasing positions; a shifter that reciprocates the spine-creasing press members between the standby and spine-creasing positions; and a controller. The controller functions to vary, in accordance with sheet bundle thickness, any of: (1) the standby position of the press members; (2) the start time of an operation whereby the press members are shifted from the standby to the spine-creasing position; or (3) the traveling speed of the press members in shifting from the standby to the spine-creasing position.

An image forming system includes: a ring bookbinding section which perform a ring bookbinding to a bundle of sheets by using a binder provided with a spine portion and a plurality of finger portions; and a judging section, wherein a last page is firstly fed immediately after job initiation and, subsequently after having fed the last page, image formation based on the image data is initiated, when the judging section judges that an image is not formed on the last page, and wherein all of the image data is firstly acquired completely after job initiation, subsequently the last page is fed and formed image thereon, and then image formation of remaining pages is carried out, when the judging section judges that image is formed on the last page.

A bookbinding apparatus inserts ring parts of a comb-shaped ring into binding holes of a sheet bundle and files and binds the sheet bundle, sequentially and includes a binding hole forming section configured to form binding holes in the sheet, a compiling section configured to arrange the sheet in which the binding holes are formed to make the sheet bundle, a comb-shaped ring feeding section configured to feed the comb-shaped ring piece by piece, a binding section configured to receive the fed comb-shaped ring, insert the ring parts of the comb-shaped ring into the binding holes of the sheet bundle, and bind the sheet bundle, and a bound-book discharging section configured to transfer the sheet bundle bound by the binding section to a storage stacker.

Josep Cambras