An image forming apparatus includes a storing section that has a common storage area, the common storage area having a plurality of areas that are coexisting in the common storage area in accordance with a threshold value and are used to generate and store a plurality of pieces of data that have different formats based on electronic data; a language format discriminating section to discriminate a description language format of the electronic data; and a control section to change the threshold value based on the description language format discriminated by the language format discriminating section.