Sheet feeding apparatus for re-feeding a sheet without smearing

A sheet feeding apparatus, comprising:

• first conveying means for conveying a sheet stack formed in a stepped fashion by offsetting each sheet by a predetermined distance in a predetermined direction toward said predetermined direction;
• separating means disposed at a downstream side of said first conveying means in said predetermined direction for separating an outermost sheet from the sheet stack fed out by said first conveying means by sliding between the outermost sheet and other sheets;
• and
• second conveying means for conveying the outermost sheet separated by said separating means.

A sheet feeding apparatus, comprising:

• first conveying means for conveying a sheet stack formed in a stepped fashion by offsetting each sheet by a predetermined distance in a predetermined direction toward said predetermined direction;
• second conveying means disposed at a downstream side of said first conveying means in a sheet conveying direction, for conveying the sheet conveyed by said first conveying means;
• and
• guiding means disposed between said first and second conveying means and adapted to guide an outermost sheet or other sheets in the sheet stack being conveyed by said first conveying means toward a position where said outermost sheet or said other sheets are not conveyed by said second conveying means, by sliding between the outermost sheet of the sheet stack fed out by said first conveying means and other sheets.

An image forming system comprising:

• containing means for containing sheets;
• supplying means for feeding out the sheet contained in said containing means;
• image forming means for forming an image on the sheet fed out by said supplying means;
• stacking means for stacking the sheets on which the image are formed by said image forming means in a stepped fashion by offsetting each sheet by a predetermined distance in a predetermined direction;
• first conveying means for conveying a sheet stack formed in a stepped fashion by offsetting each sheet by the predetermined distance in the predetermined direction by said stacking means toward said predetermined direction;
• separating means disposed at a downstream side of said first conveying means in a sheet conveying direction and adapted to be slid between an outermost sheet and other sheets in the sheet stack being conveyed by said first conveying means to separate said outermost sheet from said other sheets;
• and
• second conveying means for conveying the outermost sheet separated by said separating means to said image forming means.

A sheet feeding apparatus, comprising:

• first conveying means for conveying a sheet stack formed in a stepped fashion by offsetting each sheet by a predetermined distance in a predetermined direction toward said predetermined direction;
• separating means disposed at a downstream side of said first conveying means in said predetermined direction for separating an outermost sheet from the sheet stack fed out by said first conveying means by sliding between the outermost sheet and other sheets;
• second conveying means for conveying the sheet separated by said separating means;
• and
• image forming means for forming an image on the sheet conveyed by said second conveying means.

A sheet feeding apparatus, comprising:

• conveying means for conveying bundle of sheets stacked with shifting predetermined length in predetermined direction in one direction or other direction;
• separating means disposed upstream of said conveying direction, for separating an outermost sheet from other sheets among the sheets conveyed by said conveying means by sliding between the outermost sheet and other sheets;
• nipping means for nipping the other sheets separated by said separating means;
• and
• control means for controlling said conveying means so that the sheet bundle is conveyed in the other direction by said conveying means, the other sheets separated by said separating means are nipped by said nipping means, and the outermost sheet not nipped is conveyed in the one direction by said conveying means.