Document feeder for an image forming apparatus

A document feeder for an image forming apparatus that includes a document feeder, a reading means for reading the image of a document conveyed to a reading station and a recording unit for reproducing and recording the image read by the reading means on a recording medium, the document feeder comprising:

• a document tray having documents stacked thereon in a predetermined manner;
• a conveyance path for guiding a document from the document tray to the reading station;
• a discharge tray for receiving a document after being read therein;
• a discharge path for guiding a document after being read to the discharge tray;
• and
• an inverting path extending from the discharge path and joining to the conveyance path for inverting the document face so as to present the reverse side of the document to the reading station, characterized in that:
• a document, from which the image or images having been read, to be conveyed by way of the discharge path and discharged to the discharge tray, is kept on standby at a position in the discharge path, instead of being discharged completely;
• the recording unit side has an anomaly detector for detecting the shutdown of the recording operation;
• and
• the document kept at the discharge position is discharged, under the conditions that the recording medium having thereon the image or images of the document being kept at the discharge path has been discharged without any anomaly detection by the anomaly detector.