Document belt with imperforate bands

Claim 1

In a vacuum belt document transport system wherein documents are transported by and copied on a vacuum belt closely overlying a platen imaging station, including means for moving said documents in a predetermined movement direction on said vacuum belt, wherein said vacuum belt has a multiplicity of fine apertures extending substantially uniformly thereover to hold said documents against said belt substantially uniformly by vacuum forces exerted through said apertures, wherein said vacuum belt is wider than said documents transverse said movement direction, wherein said documents include at least two different standard documents of two different preselected standard edge-to-edge dimensions extending transverse said movement direction, and wherein said belt provides an image background around said documents to reduce edge show-around in the copying of said documents, the improvement wherein said vacuum belt has at least three narrow unapertured areas extending linearly in said movement direction of said belt, said unapertured areas being parallel imperforate bands spaced apart from one another by distances between the centers of said bands transverse said movement direction equal to said two standard dimensions of said two standard documents to provide an unapertured image background area of said belt for both edges of both said standard documents, with both said edges of said standard documents lying within said unapertured bands of said belt in said imaging station, and wherein the dimensions of said unapertured bands transverse said movement direction are only a minor portion of said standard dimension of said standard document and minor areas of said vacuum belt, and wherein substantially the entire major area of the vacuum belt between all three of said unapertured bands is fully apertured to provide said vacuum holding of said documents to said belt.