Sheet supplying apparatus

A sheet supplying apparatus for supplying a sheet from a stored location to a sheet feed location, comprising:

• a sheet storing cassette for storing sheets to be automatically fed;
• pickup means for picking up sheets from said cassette one by one to automatically feed sheets, and for guiding manually inserted sheets, said pickup means including a pick up roller which is rotatable about a fixed axis and having a curved peripheral surface adapted to contact said sheets which are to be automatically fed and a flat peripheral surface adapted to guide a manually inserted sheet, said flat surface being smaller in area than an area of a rectangular cross-section of an area passing through a center of a cylinder having a radius equal to a radius of said pickup roller;
• register means for aligning a sheet from said pickup means to supply said sheet to the sheet feed location, said register means including a pair of rotatable register rollers which contact each other at a nip portion thereof;
• a guide plate, fixed on said cassette, for guiding a manually inserted sheet to an area between the cassette and the flat peripheral surface of the pickup roller, the guide plate located such that the guided sheet passes between said guide plate and said flat peripheral surface into said nip portion between said register rollers;
• and
• driving means for controlling an automatic sheet feed by:
• first, rotating only said pickup roller to pick up a sheet from said cassette which contacts with the curved peripheral surface of said pickup roller and to transport the sheet to a location where the leading edge of the picked up sheet abuts against the nip portions of said register rollers, next, stopping the rotation of said pickup roller while keeping a trailing edge of the sheet engaged with said pickup roller thereby ensuring that alignment of the sheet is maintained, and next rotating simultaneously the pick-up roller and at least one of the register rollers to supply the aligned sheet to the sheet feed location.