Apparatus for sorting sheets or the like

摘要

A hopper for feeding documents also serves as a stacker for stacking therein documents (2) in a generally upright position. When the fed documents (2) or the once-stacked documents (2) are to be fed to a singulation mechanism (4), the hopper or stacker (1) is put into a feeding mode, and when the documents (2) are to be stacked or sorted, the hopper or stacker (1) is switched to a stacking mode. Such hoppers or stackers (1) are arranged in a plurality of stages, and when each sorting is to be effected, addresses are read while changing the mode of each hopper or stacker (1) to repeat the sorting, so that the documents (2) are sequenced by a radix sort method.