Copy production machines having job separation and collation capabilities

摘要

A copy production machine selectively interleaves copy separation sheets between successive copy jobs, subjobs or job portions. The copy separation sheets can be from the same copy sheet supply source or from an alternate source. The supplied copy separation sheets need not be operated upon by the copy production machines for receiving an image. Such sheets may have been preimaged under certain situations. Before and after a copy job, the number of separation sheets supplied has a predetermined relationship to the number of copy receiving bins in an output portion receiving the copy separation sheets. The number of separator sheets supplied intermediate successive runs of a copy job equals the number of copies to be produced in the next succeeding copy run. The effective capacity of a collator is extended by such interleaving plus a programmable control that tallies copies made versus copies selected greater than the capacity of a collator such that the collator job is automatically segmented.