Alternative feeding document recirculation

Abstract

In an automatic document handling system for recirculating a set of document sheets seriatim in a page order to and from the imaging station of a copier for making precollated copy sheet sets, wherein the document handling system has a control system and two document trays, the improvement for higher speed document recirculation for copying on a copier having a high copying rate comprising: an automatic document sheet separating system controlled by said control means for automatically, during the first circulation of the set of document sheets, separating the set of document sheets into two half-sets of alternate page document sheets, odd and even, and restacking the half-sets respectively in the two document trays, and an automatic alternate document sheet cooperative feeding system actuated automatically by the control means on the second and subsequent copying circulations of the document set to feed document sheets alternately and overlapping in time from the two document sheet half-sets in the two document trays so as to feed document sheets at the high copying rate and in page seriatim order to be copied on said copier, and to automatically in the second and subsequent, but not the last, copying circulations, to reseparate the document sheets after they are copied in their return to the two document trays. A system specifically for handling duplex documents is also disclosed.