PURPOSE:To prevent the overheating of a copying machine securely by forcing copying operation to stop temporarily when sucessive copying of more than a prescribed number of sheets is intended, after copying more than a prescribed number of sheets successively. CONSTITUTION:The 1st plural number as the number of sheets to be copied is set with a continuous-copy-sheet-number setting swtich 9 and stored in a counter 33. Whin a print button 8 depressed, copies are taken continuously as many as the plural number N. The 2nd plural number M is set with the switch 9. For example, the N is greater than 20, and the M is greater than 30. The output of a discriminating circuit 36 is an (N-20)+(M-30), which is supplied to a down counter 36. In this case, logic 1 is outputted from the terminal P of the counter 36, so even pushing button 8 generates logic 0 as the output of an AND gate 37. Therefore, a control circuit 41 operates to inhibit copying operation. As the counter goes down to zero, copying of M sheets starts. When the greater the values of N and M become the longer the pause time becomes.