Image shifting system for use in a document processing system

In a document processing system including a scanning device for reading a document including one or more hardcopy pages and converting the hardcopy pages to corresponding electronic pages with each electronic page being represented by image data, each hardcopy page being scanned as a series of scanlines and the scanner generating a signal prior to scanning each scanline, each scanline read by the scanner being stored in memory as image data representative of a portion of one of the electronic pages, a system for shifting image data for one of the one or more electronic pages, comprising:

• an image shifting subsystem for detecting a first signal generated by the scanner and a second signal generated by the scanner;
• and
• a write control system for causing a plurality of fill pixels to be written consecutively into the memory, in response to detecting the first signal with said image shifting subsystem, so that upon subsequently writing image data corresponding with a portion of one of the electronic pages into the memory, in response to detecting the second signal with said image shifting subsystem, the presence of the consecutively written fill pixels causes the image data corresponding with the portion of the one of the electronic pages to be shifted relative to a position that the image data originally possessed in the one of the electronic pages.