Sheet feeding apparatus

An image forming system, having:

• an original stacking tray on which originals are stacked,
• first means for supplying the original;
• second rotary means, having paired opposed roller means, for directing the original fed by said first feed means onto a platen;
• a sheet stacking tray on which sheets are stacked;
• supply means for supplying the sheet from said sheet stacking tray one by one;
• image forming means for reading the original directed onto the platen and for forming an image of said original on the sheet fed by said supply means;
• first control means for rotating said opposed roller means for a predetermined time during the feeding of a first sheet, for stopping the first sheet with a trailing end thereof being retained in a nip of said opposed roller means and for moving said first feed means to feed a second sheet toward the nip of said opposed roller means, and then for rotating said second rotary means with a leading end of a second sheet being inserted into said nip to feed said first and second sheets simultaneously to said platen;
• and
• second control means for controlling said image forming means to read a plurality of originals fed to and rested side by side on said platen and to form images of said plurality of originals on a single sheet.

An image forming system, having:

• an original stacking tray on which originals are stacked;
• first feed means for supplying the originals;
• second rotary means for directing an original fed by said first feed means onto a platen;
• a sheet stacking tray on which sheets are stacked;
• supply means for supplying the sheets from said sheet stacking tray one by one;
• image forming means for reading the original directed onto the platen and for forming an image of the original on a sheet fed by said supply means;
• first control means for rotating said second rotary means to feed the first and second sheets simultaneously to the platen;
• and
• second control means for controlling said image forming means to read a plurality of originals fed to and positioned side by side on said platen and to form images of the plurality of originals on a single sheet, said second control means includes control means for equalizing blank areas of a most downstream original and of a most upstream original in reading image information of each original.

A sheet feeding apparatus, having:

• first sheet feeding means for feeding a sheet;
• second sheet feeding means disposed downstream of said first sheet feeding means for further feeding the sheet;
• retract means for retracting a trailing end of the sheet when the trailing end located upstream of said second sheet feeding means becomes shorter than a predetermined length by further feeding by said second sheet feeding means;
• first control means for controlling so that succeeding sheet is fed to said second sheet feeding means by said first sheet feeding means when the trailing end of sheet is retracted to cause a leading end of the succeeding sheet to thereby overlap with the trailing end of preceding sheet, and thereafter the preceding sheet and succeeding sheet are fed by said second sheet feeding means;
• third sheet feeding means disposed downstream of said second sheet means to feed the sheet;
• second control means for controlling sheet feed speed of said third sheet feeding means faster than that of said second sheet feeding means to cancel the overlap between the preceding sheet and succeeding sheet.