Sheet discharge apparatus and image forming apparatus

Abstract

A sheet discharge apparatus includes: a discharger that discharges a sheet; a loading part on which the sheet discharged from the discharger is loaded; an abutment member that abuts against a rear end of the sheet in a direction of discharging to align the sheet loaded on the loading part; a pull-back member that performs a pull-back operation by contacting with the sheet discharged from the discharger to pull back the sheet toward the abutment member; and a hardware processor that controls the pull-back member. The hardware processor performs the pull-pack operation on a sheet bundle when determining that the sheet bundle bound by a binder is discharged from the discharger.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A sheet discharge apparatus comprising:
 a discharger that discharges a sheet;   a loading part on which the sheet discharged from the discharger is loaded;   an abutment member that abuts against a rear end of the sheet in a direction of discharging to align the sheet loaded on the loading part;   a pull-back member that performs a pull-back operation by contacting with the sheet discharged from the discharger to pull back the sheet toward the abutment member; and   a hardware processor that controls the pull-back member,   wherein the hardware processor performs the pull-pack operation on a sheet bundle upon determining that the sheet bundle bound by a binder is discharged from the discharger.   
     
     
         2 . The sheet discharge apparatus according to  claim 1 , wherein, upon determining that the sheet bundle is discharged from the discharger, the hardware processor determines whether the pull-pack operation is performed on the sheet bundle based on a number of sheets of the sheet bundle loaded on the loading part, or a number of the sheets to be bound of the sheet bundle discharged from the discharger. 
     
     
         3 . The sheet discharge apparatus according to  claim 2 , wherein, when the number of sheets to be bound of the sheet bundle discharged from the discharger is equal to or larger than a reference number of binding sheets, the hardware processor determines not to perform the pull-pack operation on the sheet bundle. 
     
     
         4 . The sheet discharge apparatus according to  claim 2 , wherein, when the number of sheets of the sheet bundle loaded on the loading part is larger than a reference number of copies, the hardware processor performs the pull-pack operation on the sheet bundle discharged from the discharger. 
     
     
         5 . The sheet discharge apparatus according to  claim 1 ,
 wherein the hardware processor controls a release timing of when the pull-pack member releases the sheet, and   the release timing for the sheet bundle in a case where a number of binding sheets is smaller than a reference number is earlier than the release timing for the sheet bundle in a case where a number of binding sheets is equal to or larger than the reference number of binding sheets.   
     
     
         6 . The sheet discharge apparatus according to  claim 1 , wherein the pull-pack member is a gripper that contacts with both surfaces of the sheet bundle to grip the sheet bundle. 
     
     
         7 . The sheet discharge apparatus according to  claim 6 , wherein the gripper comprises an upper gripper that abuts against the uppermost surface of the sheet bundle and a lower gripper that abuts against the lowermost surface of the sheet bundle. 
     
     
         8 . An image forming apparatus comprising:
 an image forming apparatus main body that forms an image on a sheet;   a sheet processor that applies processing to the sheet fed from the image forming apparatus main body; and   a hardware processor that controls the sheet processor,   wherein the sheet processor comprises a sheet discharge apparatus that discharges the sheet,   the sheet discharge apparatus comprises:
 a discharger that discharges the sheet; 
 a loading part on which the sheet discharged from the discharger is loaded; 
 an abutment member that abuts against a rear end of the sheet in a direction of discharging to align the sheet loaded on the loading part; and 
 a pull-pack member that performs a pull-pack operation by contacting with the sheet discharged from the discharger to pull back the sheet toward the abutment member, and 
   the hardware processor performs the pull-pack operation on a sheet bundle upon determining that the sheet bundle bound by a binder is discharged from the discharger.   
     
     
         9 . The image forming apparatus according to  claim 8 , wherein the sheet processor further comprises a binding processor that binds a plurality of the sheet with the binder to create the sheet bundle.