JPH11103381A - Method and device for forming image - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To extract images from the original of reduced layout print in the order of pages of original document images and to permit enlarged consecutive photographing by recognizing characters included in plural images in image data and forming them as images for one page. SOLUTION: It is judged whether an enlarged consecutive photographic copy mode is selected or not. When the copy start key of a control panel 140 is pressed, the original placed on an original glass platen 101 is read by the scanning of a CCD unit 106, and the character recognition area of image data for one original image read by that CCD unit 106 is divided in the set enlarged consecutive photographic copy mode. This processing is executed by the image processing part. Concerning these respective divided areas, a numeral (such as a page number, for example), existent at a prescribed position is recognized by character recognizing processing. In the order from the smallest numeral among these recognized numerals, the image data in the respective divided areas are respectively enlarged and consecutively outputted in the size for one original.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image forming method and apparatus for forming an image by inputting document image data.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Heretofore, there has been known a reduced layout in which a plurality of original images are read in a copying machine or the like, reduced, laid out on one original, and printed. In this case, the arrangement of the reduced layout image can be freely set by the operator from a predetermined layout.

[0003]

There is known an enlarged continuous shooting function for printing a plurality of originals by enlarging an original image printed in a reduced layout in this manner to an original image.

FIGS. 10A and 10B are diagrams for explaining such an enlarged continuous shooting operation. As shown in FIG. 10A, for example, in an original 500 in which four originals are reduced and copied to one sheet, a first page is located at the upper left of the original 500, a second page is located at the upper right, and a third page is located at the lower left. The fourth page document is laid out at the bottom right of the page. This manuscript 5
When 00 is divided into four sheets and copied, as shown in FIG. 10A, pages 2, 3, and 4 are sequentially output from the image of the first page.

On the other hand, as shown in FIG.
When the original 501 in which the first page is arranged at the upper left, the third page is arranged at the upper right, the second page is arranged at the lower left, and the fourth page is arranged at the lower right, the original 501 is divided into four sheets and copied.
If output is performed in the same order as in (A), three pages are output after one page, then two pages and four pages are output, and the pages are not arranged in order.

Further, if the staple processing or the bookbinding processing is selected as the post-processing, a page having an irregular page order is created. There has been a problem that it takes time and effort, for example, the document direction must be adjusted and post-processing must be performed again. .

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above conventional example, and provides an image forming method and apparatus capable of taking out an image from a document on which reduced layout printing has been performed in the page order of the original document image and enlarging and continuously taking the image. With the goal.

Another object of the present invention is to convert a plurality of document images in various layouts from a document on which reduced layout printing has been performed.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an image forming method and an apparatus capable of enlarging and continuously shooting in accordance with the order of the original document images.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above object, an image forming apparatus according to the present invention has the following arrangement.
That is, an image forming apparatus for forming an image by inputting image data, a character recognizing unit for recognizing a character included in each of a plurality of images included in the image data,
Forming means for forming the plurality of images as an image for one page; and outputting the images formed by the forming means in the order of the characters corresponding to the images recognized by the character recognizing means. And output means for performing the operation.

In order to achieve the above object, the image forming method of the present invention comprises the following steps. That is, an image forming method for forming an image by inputting image data, comprising: a character recognition step of recognizing characters included in each of a plurality of images included in the image data; As an image for one page, and an output step of sorting and outputting the image formed in the forming step in the order of the characters corresponding to the image recognized in the character recognition step. It is characterized by the following.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view illustrating the configuration of an image forming apparatus (digital copying machine) according to the present embodiment.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 101 denotes a document table glass on which documents fed from an automatic document feeder (ADF) 142 are sequentially placed at predetermined positions. Reference numeral 102 denotes a document illumination lamp having a halogen lamp or the like, for exposing a document placed on the document table glass 101 to light. 103,10
Reference numerals 4 and 105 denote scanning mirrors, which are housed in an optical scanning unit (not shown) and reciprocate in the left-right direction in FIG.
Light reflected from the document is guided to the CCD unit 106. The CCD unit 106 includes the imaging device 10 such as a CCD.
8, an imaging lens 107 for imaging reflected light from the original;
A CCD driver 109 for driving the image sensor 108 is provided. The image signal output from the image sensor 108 is converted into, for example, 8-bit digital data and then input to the controller 139.

Reference numeral 110 denotes a photosensitive drum, which is discharged by a pre-exposure lamp 112 in preparation for image formation. A primary charger 113 charges the surface of the photosensitive drum 110 uniformly. Reference numeral 117 denotes an exposure unit that is configured by, for example, a semiconductor laser or the like, exposes the photosensitive drum 110 based on image data processed by a controller 139 that performs image processing and control of the entire apparatus, and forms an electrostatic image corresponding to the image data. Form a latent image. Reference numeral 118 denotes a developing device which stores a black developer (toner). A pre-transfer charger 119 applies a high voltage before transferring the toner image developed on the photosensitive drum 110 to a sheet. Reference numerals 120, 122, and 124 denote paper feed units, and each paper feed roller 121, 123, 1
The transfer paper is fed into the apparatus by the rotation drive of 25,
The image forming apparatus temporarily stops at a position where the registration roller 126 is provided, and is re-fed at a timing of writing with the image formed on the photosensitive drum 110. A transfer charger 127 transfers the toner image developed on the photosensitive drum 110 to a fed transfer sheet. Reference numeral 128 denotes a separation charger, which separates the transfer paper having undergone the transfer operation from the photosensitive drum 110. The toner remaining on the photosensitive drum 110 without being transferred is collected by the cleaner 111.

Reference numeral 129 denotes a conveying belt which conveys the transfer sheet after the transfer process to the position of the fixing device 130, and fixes the image by, for example, heat. 131 is a flapper,
The transfer path of the transfer sheet after the completion of the fixing process is controlled to any one of the arrangement directions of the staple sorter 132 or the intermediate tray 137. The paper discharged to the staple sorter 132 is sorted into each bin, and the staple unit 141 staples according to an instruction from the controller 139.
Reference numerals 133 to 136 denote feeding rollers, which invert (multiply) transfer paper on which the fixing process has been completed once to the intermediate tray 137.
Or, feed the paper with non-reversal (both sides). Reference numeral 138 denotes a re-feed roller, which conveys the transfer sheet placed on the intermediate tray 137 to the position of the registration roller 126 again. The controller 139 includes a microcomputer described later,
The image forming apparatus includes an image processing unit and the like, and performs the above-described image forming operation in accordance with an instruction from the operation panel 140.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of the controller 139 in the image forming apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention.

In FIG. 2, reference numeral 201 denotes a CPU for controlling the entire image forming apparatus of the present embodiment. The CPU 201 sequentially reads a control program from a read-only memory 203 (ROM) that stores a control procedure (control program) for the apparatus main body. Read and execute. The address bus and the data bus of the CPU 201 are connected to each load via a bus driver and an address decoder circuit 202. Reference numeral 204 denotes a random access memory (RAM) which is a main storage device used as storage for input data, a work storage area, and the like. 205 is an I / O interface port,
The operator performs key input and displays the status of the device, such as liquid crystal and LED.
Operation panel 140, motors 207 for driving a paper feeding system, a conveyance system, and an optical system, and clutches 2
08, solenoids 209, and paper detection sensors 210 for detecting the paper being conveyed.

The developing device 118 is provided with a toner remaining amount detection sensor 211 for detecting the amount of toner in the developing device, and an output signal thereof is input to the I / O port 205. Reference numeral 215 denotes a high-voltage control unit, and the primary charger 113 and the developing device 11
8. The voltage value (high voltage) to the pre-transfer charger 119, the transfer charger 127, and the separation charger 128 is controlled.

Reference numeral 206 denotes an image processing unit which receives an image signal output from the CCD unit 106, performs image processing described later, and generates image data for printing. The laser unit 1 according to the image data thus generated
17 is driven. In this manner, the laser beam output from the laser unit 117 irradiates the photosensitive drum 110 by irradiating and exposing the photosensitive drum 110, and the light emission state is detected by a beam detection sensor 213 which is a light receiving sensor in a non-image area, and the output signal is I / O. Input to the O port 205.

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram showing a functional configuration of the image processing unit 206 in the controller 139 in the image forming apparatus according to the present embodiment.

An image signal converted into an electric signal output from the CCD 108 is firstly converted into a shading circuit 301.
After the variation between pixels is corrected by the
In 02, data thinning processing is performed at the time of reduced copy, and data interpolation is performed at the time of enlarged copy. Next, in the edge emphasis circuit 303, for example, a second derivative is performed in a 5 × 5 window to emphasize the edges of the image.
Since this image data is luminance data, γ is converted to density data to be finally output to the semiconductor laser.
The conversion circuit 304 performs data conversion by table search. The image data thus converted into the density data by the gamma conversion circuit 304 is input to the binarization processing circuit 305. Here, multi-value data is converted into binary data by, for example, the ED (error diffusion) method. The image data thus converted into binary data is input to the synthesizing circuit 307, and the input image data and the image data of the image memory 310 constituted by, for example, a DRAM are selectively or ORed. And output. The read / write control for the image memory 310 is performed by the memory control unit 309. When the image is rotated, the read address of the image data in the image memory 310 is controlled. The image data output from the synthesizing circuit 307 is input to the PWM circuit 308 in order to convert the image data into a signal of the light emission intensity of the semiconductor laser, and outputs a signal of a pulse width according to the image density to the exposure unit 117. The image data output from the scaling circuit 302 is input to the document direction determination unit 306, and a document direction determination process described later is executed.

Next, the operation of the document direction discriminating unit according to the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the structure of the document direction discrimination unit 306.

In FIG. 4, a shading circuit 301
Is output to the CPU / memory unit 401, where the image data is temporarily stored and various controls are performed. This CPU / memory unit 401
Is connected to the CPU 201 of the controller 139 via a bus, for example, via a dual port RAM (not shown), and data is transmitted and received between them. Note that this data communication may of course be serial communication.

The character recognition / direction discrimination unit 402 pays attention to the fact that the direction of the document is most accurately represented by the direction of the character, and identifies several types of character areas in the document as 0 °, 90 °, 1 °.
Character recognition is performed from each direction of 80 ° and 270 °, and the direction with the highest accuracy among the character recognition accuracy (the degree of confidence of character recognition: the distance to the characteristic distribution of the character) in each direction is obtained. Is the document direction. Region separation unit 403
Separates a character portion, a graphic portion, a natural image portion, a front portion, and the like from the document image data into rectangular regions as preprocessing for performing character recognition / direction determination processing by the character recognition / direction determination portion 402. Then, a process of adding an attribute (such as a character portion) of each area is performed. The storage unit 404 includes, for example, a hard disk or a magneto-optical disk, and processes results of various data (image data, area separation result, character recognition result, and the like).
Used to save An I / F unit 405 is an interface unit that operates according to interface specifications such as SCSI and RS232C.
06 is controlled. The computer 406 obtains information via the I / F unit 405 and obtains and uses data stored in the storage unit 404.

Next, an outline of the document direction automatic discrimination / correction and character recognition processing according to the present embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

In step S2, the image data (multi-valued image) input in step S1 is separated into rectangular regions by the attribute such as a character portion, a graphic portion, a natural image portion, and a front portion by the region separating portion 403. You. Here, actually, area information surrounded by a rectangle is created.

Then, the process proceeds to a step S3, wherein rectangular information of the character area is extracted from each attribute. Here, the character frame area includes a text portion, a title portion, characters in a table, a caption portion of a figure, and the like.

For example, in the case of the documents shown in FIGS. 6A and 6C, the rectangular information of the character area as shown in FIGS. 6B and 6D is extracted. Then, by using several blocks in these, characters included therein are recognized at a rotation angle of 0 °. Next, in step S5, the character is rotated by 90 °. In step S6, it is determined whether character recognition has been performed in each of the four rotation directions of 0 °, 90 °, 180 °, and 270 °. Steps S4 to S6 are repeatedly executed until the character recognition in one rotation direction is completed.

When character recognition results in these four directions are obtained, the process proceeds to step S7, and the direction of the character is determined based on the degree of confidence at each rotation angle as shown in FIG. 8C. In step S8, the direction of the character string is finally determined according to the rotation angle at which the character is recognized, and further, the corresponding area separation information and character recognition information are obtained.

One of the methods in the image rotation processing in step S5 is a method of performing the area separation processing again on all the rotation image data, and the other is a method of applying the address conversion to the area separation result. Since the image is generally assumed to be in the forward direction, the result of the region separation performed in the initial stage and the result of the region separation performed on the rotated image data are often different from each other. Therefore, it is desirable to take the former method.

The result of this processing is transmitted to the computer 406 via the I / F unit 405, and is used by a filing application program of the computer 406. The image is transmitted to the CPU 201 of the controller 139 for each image.

Next, a description will be given of a method of determining the document direction using the character recognition processing.

[Region Separation Processing] A black pixel in a document image data is detected, and a rectangular frame of a black pixel block is created by contour tracing or labeling. next,
The density of black pixels in the rectangle, the presence or absence of adjacent rectangular blocks,
A character area (title, body, caption, etc.), a graphic area, a natural image area, a table area, and the like are determined based on an aspect ratio of a rectangle. The rectangular area of the character frame area is determined based on the determination result.

[Character Recognition Processing] As one method of character recognition processing, there is a feature vector extraction and comparison method. For example, as shown in FIG. 7A, it is assumed that a character area including the character "book" is determined. As a first step, a character cutout process is performed on this character area (see FIG. 7B). This is a process for cutting out a rectangle of one character, and is required if the state of black pixel continuity is detected.

As a second step, one character is cut into m × n (for example, 64 × 64) pixel blocks (see FIG. 7C). Then, the distribution direction of the black pixels is extracted from among them using a 3 × 3 pixel window (direction vector information: see FIG. 7D).

FIG. 7D exemplifies a part of the direction vector information, and several tens of direction vector information are obtained by shifting the window of 3 × 3 pixels. This vector information is a character feature. The vector information (feature vector) is compared with the contents of a character recognition dictionary stored in advance, and characters are extracted in order from the character whose feature is closest to the feature vector. In this case, the first candidate, the second candidate,. The closeness of the feature to this feature vector is a numerical value indicating the closeness of the distance to the character, that is, the degree of confidence (accuracy, likelihood) of character recognition.

[Character Direction Judgment Processing] The confidence level of the character recognition is obtained in this manner. The character direction discrimination processing based on the confidence degree is performed by using the character string "name of the present invention" shown in FIG. A description will be given using the case.

FIG. 8A shows a character string in the forward direction.
(B) is a character string obtained by rotating the character string by 270 °. Here, paying attention to the character “book”, when judging the character direction, as shown in FIG. 8C, four characters of 0 °, 90 °, 180 ° and 270 ° for one character “book” are used.
Try character recognition from the direction. For each of these rotation angles, it is sufficient to change the reading method of the character rectangular area, and it is not necessary to rotate the document.

FIG. 8 shows the result of character recognition at each rotation angle.
As shown in (c), they are different from each other. Note that FIG. 8C shows a provisional character recognition result and a degree of self-confidence for explanation, and this is not always the case.

In FIG. 8 (c), when character recognition is performed from the positive direction (0 °), “book” is correctly recognized, and the degree of confidence is a high value of “0.90”. When character recognition is performed from a direction rotated by 90 °, it is erroneously recognized as “town”,
The confidence level also drops to “0.40”. The reason why the erroneous recognition occurs and the confidence level is reduced is that the character recognition is performed based on the feature vector when viewed from the rotating direction. Similarly, when character recognition is performed from a direction rotated by 180 ° or 270 °, erroneous recognition occurs and the degree of confidence is reduced. Note that the degree of confidence in the direction of character recognition becomes more noticeable as the characters are more complex.

The result shown in FIG. 8C indicates that the document is highly likely to be oriented in the forward direction because the confidence is highest in the forward direction. In order to improve such character direction discrimination accuracy, for a plurality of characters in the same block,
Similarly, character recognition is performed from four directions. Furthermore, if the character direction is determined only by one block, the character direction may be erroneously determined for a special character string.
Perform similar character recognition for multiple blocks.
Then, for each block, an average value of the degrees of confidence in the four directions of each character to be recognized in the block is calculated, and further,
The average value of the confidence values in the four directions in each block is calculated, and the direction with the highest average value is recognized as the character direction (document direction).

As described above, by determining the character direction based on the confidence of a plurality of characters in the same block and further on the confidence level of the plurality of characters in the same block without determining the character direction based on the confidence of only one character, The (document) direction can be determined with high accuracy. However, even if the character direction is determined based on the degree of confidence of only one character, or the character direction is determined based on the degree of confidence of a plurality of characters in the same block, the character direction can be determined with higher accuracy than before.

Next, when the result of determination of the character direction (document direction) is a direction other than the forward direction, the original image is rotated so that the character direction becomes the forward direction. This rotation is performed by the CPU shown in FIG.
It can be easily performed by a known technique using the memory 401, and the description thereof is omitted.

With the above processing, the original image data shown in FIG. 9A, the area separation data shown in FIG. 9B, and the character recognition information shown in FIG. 9C can be obtained. . These pieces of information are sent to the CPU 201 of the controller 139 as described above, and are used for various image processing and various controls.

The data format of the area separation data is shown in FIG.
As shown in (B), “header” indicating that the data is the area separation data, and the identifier “rect” of the separated area
The information of each area (block) distinguished by these identifiers includes a block number “order”, a block attribute (character portion, graphic portion, etc.) “att”, and an upper left corner of the block. Coordinate values “x1” and “y1”, block width “w”, block height “h”, and “directio” indicating vertical writing or horizontal writing
n ”,“ selfID ”which is the ID of the block, and“ upp ”which is the ID of the parent block including the block.
erID ", parent block attribute" upperAtt ",
It is configured by a spare area “reserve”.

As shown in FIG. 9C, the character recognition information "head" indicating that the character recognition information is character recognition information.
For example, character recognition information “OCR1” or the like regarding a single character such as “book” and “blk” corresponding to the above “rect1” or the like indicating a block including the character.
header ".

Each character recognition information such as “OCR1” is “type” indicating whether it is a character or a blank.
e ", the first to fifth candidate characters" character 1 "to" character 5 "according to the above-described degree of confidence in character recognition, the cutout positions" x1 "and" y1 "of the character, and the width" w "of the character. , The height of the character "h", and a spare area "reserve".

Next, referring to the flowchart of FIG. 11 and FIG. 12, the details of the enlarged continuous copying operation in the image forming apparatus of this embodiment will be described.

First, in step S11, it is determined whether or not the enlarged continuous copy mode has been selected. If the mode is not the enlarged continuous copy mode, the process proceeds to step S16, instructs the copy processing operation, and ends.

When the enlarged continuous copy mode is selected in step S11, the flow advances to step S12 to wait for input of a copy start key on the operation panel 140. Operation panel 1
When the copy start key 40 is pressed, step S is executed.
In step 13, the original placed on the original glass table 101 is read by scanning of the CCD unit 106, and the CCD unit 10 is scanned in the set enlarged continuous copy mode.
In step 6, the character recognition area of the image data of one document image read is divided. This processing is executed by the image processing unit 206. Here, for example, the area is divided into four areas in the 1 to 4 mode (printing the original four originals from one original printed in the reduced layout) and into six areas in the 1 to 6 mode. Next, the process proceeds to step S14, and a numeral (for example, a page number) existing at a predetermined position is recognized for each of the divided areas by the above-described character recognition processing. Then, the process proceeds to step S15, and the image data of each area divided in step S13 is enlarged to the size of one document and copied and output in the order of smaller recognized numbers. In this case, for example, as shown in FIG. 10, if it is 1 to 4, the enlargement ratio is 2 × 2. It should be noted that the enlarged continuous copying is already well known, and a detailed description thereof will be omitted.

By the above operation, as shown in FIG.
As described in FIG. 10, the first page is at the upper left, and the second page is at the upper right.
In the case of the original 500 in which the page, the third page at the lower left, and the fourth page at the lower right are laid out, the first page at the upper left, the second page at the lower side, the third page at the lower right, the lower right Even in the case of a document 501 on which the fourth page is laid out, enlarged continuous copying can be output in order from the first page.

In the present embodiment, the order of the originals is determined based on the page numbers described in the lower center of each original image, but the present invention is not limited to this. For example, based on a page number attached to the right or upper left or lower end, or a number (not necessarily a page number) written at a predetermined position of each document and indicating the order in which the documents are to be arranged. Alternatively, the output order of the enlarged continuous copies may be determined.

Even if the present invention is applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices (for example, a host computer, an interface device, a reader, a printer, etc.), an apparatus (for example, a copier, a facsimile) composed of one device Device).

Another object of the present invention is to provide a storage medium storing a program code of software for realizing the functions of the above-described embodiments to a system or apparatus, and to provide a computer (or CPU) of the system or apparatus.
Or MPU) reads and executes the program code stored in the storage medium.

In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium implements the functions of the above-described embodiment, and the storage medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention.

As a storage medium for supplying the program code, for example, a floppy disk, hard disk, optical disk, magneto-optical disk, CD-ROM, CD
-R, a magnetic tape, a nonvolatile memory card, a ROM, or the like can be used.

When the computer executes the readout program code, not only the functions of the above-described embodiment are realized, but also the OS (Operating System) running on the computer based on the instruction of the program code. ) Performs part or all of the actual processing, and the processing realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments.

Further, after the program code read from the storage medium is written into a memory provided on a function expansion board inserted into the computer or a function expansion unit connected to the computer, based on the instructions of the program code, The case where the CPU of the function expansion board or the function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing, and the function of the above-described embodiment is realized by the processing.

As described above, according to this embodiment, at the time of enlarged continuous copying, character information such as the page number of each document image in a document including a plurality of document images printed in reduced layout is recognized. By doing so, the original document images can be output in a desired page order.

[0061]

As described above, according to the present invention, there is an effect that images can be taken out from a document on which reduced layout printing has been performed in the order of pages of the original document image and enlarged and continuous shots can be taken.

Further, according to the present invention, a plurality of document images in various layouts are reduced from a document on which the reduced layout printing is performed.
There is an effect that enlarged continuous shooting can be performed according to the order of the original document images.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view illustrating a configuration of an image forming apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a controller of the image forming apparatus according to the exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram illustrating a functional configuration of an image processing unit of the controller according to the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a document direction determination unit according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating automatic document direction determination and character recognition processing according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a diagram for describing area separation in a document direction determination process according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining a process of a character recognition process according to the embodiment;

FIG. 8 is a diagram for describing automatic document (character) direction determination processing according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a data format of area separation and character recognition information in the present embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a diagram for explaining a conventional example.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart illustrating processing in an enlarged continuous shooting mode in the image forming apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating enlarged continuous copying according to the embodiment of the present invention.

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Yukio Yokoyama 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Canon Inc. (72) Inventor Tomofumi Nakayama 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Canon Inside the corporation

Claims (12)

[Claims] 1. An image forming apparatus for forming an image by inputting image data, comprising: character recognition means for recognizing a character included in each of a plurality of images included in the image data; Forming means for forming an image of the image as one page image, and outputting means for sorting and outputting the image formed by the forming means in the order of the characters corresponding to the image recognized by the character recognizing means. An image forming apparatus comprising: 2. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said character recognition means recognizes a page number included in said image. 3. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the forming unit enlarges each of the plurality of images to form an image for one page. 4. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising image input means for reading and inputting a document image obtained by reducing and printing a plurality of images. It is characterized by. 5. The image forming apparatus according to claim 3, further comprising: an instruction unit configured to instruct the number of images included in the input image data, wherein the character recognition unit includes the input image data. Is divided into a number of areas corresponding to the number of sheets instructed by the instruction means, and characters included in each of the divided areas are recognized. 6. The image forming apparatus according to claim 5, wherein said forming means further enlarges the image data in accordance with the number of sheets instructed by said instructing means. 7. An image forming method for forming an image by inputting image data, comprising: a character recognition step of recognizing a character included in each of a plurality of images included in the image data; Forming an image of one minute as an image of one page, and an output step of sorting and outputting the image formed in the forming step in the order of characters corresponding to the image recognized in the character recognition step And an image forming method. 8. The image forming method according to claim 7, wherein in the character recognition step, a page number included in the image is recognized. 9. The image forming method according to claim 7, wherein in the forming step, each of the plurality of images is enlarged to form an image for one page. 10. The image forming method according to claim 7, further comprising an image input step of reading and inputting a document image obtained by reducing and printing a plurality of images. It is characterized by. 11. The image forming method according to claim 9, further comprising an instruction step of instructing the number of pieces of image data included in the input image, wherein in the character recognition step, the input image is input. Is divided into a number of areas corresponding to the number of sheets instructed in the instructing step, and characters included in each of the divided areas are recognized. 12. The image forming method according to claim 11, wherein in the forming step, the image data is further enlarged according to the number of sheets specified in the specifying step.