Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Yoshihisa Minakawa

Kazuyoshi Yamada

Masaaki Kabumoto

Goroh Katsuyama

Taijiroh Sueishi

Masanao Takahashi

Yuji Suzuki

Masateru Kohno

Tetsuya Goto

Takashi Munakata

Yohichi Watanabe

Aya Masuda

Takeshi Kimura

Shigeru Horiguchi

Osamu Miki

Fumiyo Kojima

Tamaki Someya

Taijirou Sueishi

Makoto Sugita

Satoru Tohyama

Mariko Ikeda

In a sheet supply/convey supporting device, a sheet placing unit includes a pair of guide members and a supporting plate that form a space for holding a sheet stack, and a carriage member supports the sheet placing unit and includes a driving mechanism for lifting or lowering the sheet placing unit. The supporting plate supports the sheet stack and is movable between an opened position at which a bottom of the space is opened and a closed position at which the bottom of the space is closed.

Sheet supply/convey supporting device

Mass sheet feed tray

High-speed copying machine with a finisher

Dry electrostatic copying machine

Full color multi-function printing machine

Wide digital copying machine

An image forming apparatus of the type dealing with relatively wide documents of the present invention includes a generally L-shaped bar. The bar extends from one side of an apparatus body to a position above a document table and is angularly movable in the direction of width of the apparatus body. The bar includes a horizontal portion that includes a semicircular trough playing the role of a document guide. A document or documents are simply rolled up together and then put on the horizontal portion. The documents are pulled out of the horizontal portion one by one and inserted into the apparatus body.

Image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus including a scanner, which includes a guide member provided at an inlet of a clearance formed below a cover of the scanner. The guide member has a substantially pentagonal shape as viewed from the top, and may also include a notch formed in the top portion of the pentagon. The guide member also includes an edge portion curled in a semicircle in an upward direction that is arranged at both sides of the notch. Further, the curled edge portion is inclined from a center of the clearance toward an edge in a length direction. When an original document having a curled leading edge is fed to the scanner, a central portion of the curled leading edge of the original document is placed beneath the edge portion of the guide member. Thus, when the curled portion of the original document hits the edge portion of the guide member, the curled portion of the original document slips beneath the edge portion while the curled portion of the original document is flattened by the curled edge portion of the guide member.

Image forming apparatus capable of smoothly feeding large-size sheet into main body

Electronic copying machine

Automatic document feeder for electronic copying machine

Stacker for electronic copying machine

Control panel for electronic copying machine

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Yoshihisa Minakawa