| 摘要 |
A document feeding apparatus is provided which includes a hopper for holding a stack of documents edgewise, feed means for serially removing documents from the hopper, and a follower or pressure flag for biasing the stack towards the feed means. Augers are disposed within the hopper adjacent the feed means for advancing the stack thereto, and for aligning or jogging the documents in an intermediate area thereof. The diameter and pitch of the threads of the augers increase from leading ends thereof towards their center sections, and decrease from the center sections towards the trailing ends thereof. The narrow-pitched threads at the leading ends of the augers serve to divide the document stack into packs. The widening pitch of the augers allows the documents to spread apart in the center sections, thereby reducing interdocumental pressure and friction and allowing the documents to be jogged and properly aligned relative to the base and a front edge guide of the hopper. The decreasing thread pitch of the augers adjacent the document feed means serves to compress the packs to present a firmly packed stack of documents to the feed means.
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