Automatic document conveying apparatus

Abstract

An automatic document conveying device has a stack tray on which a plurality of documents are stacked; a feeder by which the documents stacked on the stack tray are separated and fed one by one; at least one pair of conveying rollers provided downstream of the feeder; a reading position for reading document information from said separated documents positioned downstream of the at least one pair of conveying rollers; a conveyor provided opposite to the reader for conveying separated documents to the reading position; a discharger positioned downstream of said reading position for discharging documents after said conveyor conveys the documents to the reading position, a conveyance path on which a plurality of documents are sequentially located between the feeder and the reading position; the conveyance path having predetermined stand-by positions provided on the conveyance path at which documents, subsequent to a document positioned at the reading position are stopped; a document detector provided between the at least one pair of conveying rollers and the conveyor; an encoder which generates a pulse signal corresponding to a rotation of the conveyor; and pulse counter for counting the encoding pulses. A document conveyance to the reading position by the conveyor is controlled based on a number of pulses counted by the pulse counters on the basis of a detection timing by the document detector.