Minolta Company, Ltd.

Yoshitaka Isogai

Henry Young Chin

Steve McCallion

Peter Wyatt

Scott Thorpe

Yoko Takahashi

Yoshihiro Ichi

An image reading apparatus comprises a vertical type paper feed unit which feed paper into a printing unit, and a discharge unit which contains the paper discharged from the printing unit. The paper feed unit and the discharged unit are arranged in a vertical direction to the printing unit, which will allow the floor surface projection area to be reduced. Further, the paper is conveyed into one of discharge trays in accordance with its paper size. Thereby, the larger size paper is discharged underside the smaller size paper, accordingly, it does not occur for the paper discharged to the upper discharge tray to shield the paper on the lower stage discharge tray from the visual angle. Also, the confirmation of paper discharge and taking out can be easily carried out irrespective of the paper size.

Image producing apparatus wherein a paper feed unit and a paper stack are arranged in a vertical direction

Portion of a copying machine with facsimile functions

An image producing apparatus comprises a paper passage route which conveys paper selectively from a manual paper-feed unit and a paper feed unit, and conveys paper discharged from a print unit, and an image reading unit which reads out images of a document conveyed in the paper passage route. In a usual state, printed output is produced on the paper contained in the paper feed unit of a body, and the manual paper-feed unit is kept vacant, then, there is no need to take out the paper in the case of loading the document to be read out in the manual paper-feed tray. Moreover, the apparatus does not have a paper feed tray, a discharge tray and a paper passage route used only for image reading, which can decrease manufacturing costs, and besides, makes it possible to take up less installation space.

Image producing apparatus having an image reading unit

Growing community of inventors

Kawasaki, Japan

Yoshitaka Isogai