Signature job copying system and method

Abstract

An automatic document feeder having top and bottom sheet feeders for selectively feeding top and bottom document sheets from the top and bottom of a stack of documents placed in an input tray of the document feeder is used to feed documents onto a copier platen in proper signature page order. The automatic document feeder selectively feeds the documents in accordance with a signature sequence by feeding a first document from either the top or from the bottom of the stack, followed by feeding alternate pairs of documents from the top and from the bottom of the stack, starting with an opposite one of the top and bottom of the stack from the one containing the first document, until all documents are fed to the copier platen. The documents are moved two at a time as a signature document pair in the signature sequence directly from the automatic document feeder to the imaging station. Preferably, the documents are fed long-edge-first onto the copier platen while the signature copy sheets which receive page images from the signature document pairs are fed short-edge-first through a duplex paper path of the copier. When the collated stack of documents is arranged face-up in the automatic document feeder, with page one on top of the stack, feeding occurs in the following sequence, wherein T represents a sheet fed from the top of the document stack and B represents a sheet fed from the bottom of the document stack: T,B B, T T, B B, T . . .