Copier with document sensing control

Claim 2

In a copier with a document feeder for feeding conventionally sized original document sheets with conventional information indicia on one or both sides thereof to a document imaging station to be copied onto selected copy sheets in said copier, which copier is controlled by an electronic controller, the improvement wherein: said document feeder has a non-imaging optical scanning means therein for optically scanning the document sheets being fed by said document feeder before they are copied to provide electrical pulses corresponding to light and dark indicia area of said document sheets; and wherein a control sheet of said conventional document size is adapted to be insertable into said same document feeder in the same manner as said original document sheets; said control sheet has a plurality of defined operator selectably markable indicia area thereon, identified by adjacent pre-printed locating and identifying indicia thereof, said selectable markable areas corresponding to different operator selectable operations of said copier; said operator markable indicia areas on said control sheet are adapted for reading by said optical scanning means; and said optical scanning means is connected to said electronic controller of said copier to control the operation of said copier with said operator markable indicia as said control sheet is fed by said document feeder, including means to automatically inhibit the copying of said control sheet by said copier by indicia areas thereon; wherein said same optical scanning means and said electronic controller are further adapted to sense the absence of any indicia on one side of an individual document sheet being fed by said document feeder and to automatically inhibit the copying of that indicia-free side of that document sheet by said copier.

Claim 3

The copier of claim 1, wherein said document feeder inverts said document sheets and re-feeds said document sheets past said same optical scanning means to scan the opposite sides thereof, to determine the presence or absence of indicia on both sides of said document sheet utilizing only a single sensor positioned at only one side of the path of said documents.

Claim 4

The copier of claims 1 or 2, further including at least one inserter tray, and wherein one said operation controlled by said controller is the feeding of inserts from a said inserter tray directly to the output of the copier interleaved with copies made in the copier.

Claim 5

In the method of copying in which conventionally sized original document sheets with typewritten or other conventional information indicia on one or both sides thereof are fed by a document feeder to a copier for copying thereof, and which copier has an electronic controller, the improvement comprising: providing a control sheet with a plurality of defined operator selectable marking indicia area locations thereon corresponding to a selection of different selectable copier operations, said control sheet being substantially the same size as the document sheets to be copied and feedable in the same manner as said document sheets by said document feeder, marking said control sheet with conventional marking indicia at selected ones of said selectable indicia area locations thereon corresponding to selected copier operations, feeding said control sheet into said document feeder in the same manner as said document sheets, associated with document sheets whose copying is to be controlled thereby, automatically reading said marking indicia on said control sheet while it is being fed by said document feeder with an optical scanning device which converts said marking indicia to electrical signals, and connecting said electrical signals from said optical scanning device to said electronic controller to control the operation of said copier for the copying of one or more documents fed by said document feeder with said associated control sheet, wherein said copier has both simplex and duplex modes of copying operation, including the further steps of scanning all of said document sheets with said same optical scanner as they are fed by said document feeder for copying in said copier, to sense if one side of a document sheet contains information indicia or not, and in response to sensing that one side of a document does not contain information indicia to automatically switch said copier to said simplex copying mode of operation for that document sheet, and in response to sensing that said side of said document does contain information indicia to automatically switch to said duplex copying mode of operation for that document sheet.

Claim 6

In the method of copying in which conventionally sized original document sheets with typewritten or other conventional information indicia on one or both sides thereof are fed by a document feeder to a copier for copying thereof, and which copier has an electronic controller, the improvement comprising: providing a control sheet with a plurality of defined operator selectable marking indicia area locations thereon corresponding to a selection of different selectable copier operations, said control sheet being substantially the same size as the document sheets to be copied and feedable in the same manner as said document sheets by said document feeder, marking said control sheet with conventional marking indicia at selected ones of said selectable indicia area locations thereon corresponding to selected copier operations, feeding said control sheet into said document feeder in the same manner as said document sheets, associated with document sheets whose copying is to be controlled thereby, automatically reading said marking indicia on said control sheet while it is being fed by said document feeder with an optical scanning device which converts said marking indicia to electrical signals, and connecting said electrical signals from said optical scanning device to said electronic controller to control the operation of said copier for the copying of one or more documents fed by said document feeder with said associated control sheet, wherein said copier has both simplex and duplex modes of copying operation, including the further steps of scanning all of said document sheets with said same optical scanner as they are fed by said document feeder for copying in said copier, to sense if one side of a document sheet contains information indicia or not, and in response to sensing that one side of a document does not contain information indicia to automatically switch said copier to said simplex copying mode of operation for that document sheet, and in response to sensing that said side of said document does contain information indicia to automatically switch to said duplex copying mode of operation for that document sheet.

Claim 7

In a method for automatically variably copying a set of original document sheets in a selectably multi-functional copier wherein said document sheets are automatically fed seriatum by a document feeder in a direction of movement to said copier, the improvement comprising: intermixing, and commonly feeding said document sheets, with said document feeder, correspondingly sized control sheets bearing operator selectably markable optical indicia locations each associated with adjacent pre-printed unique digital optical encoding patterns indicative of unique selectable said copier functions, scanning in the same manner both said document sheets and said control sheets across their transverse dimensions by scanning transversely of said direction of motion with the same stationary electro-optical line scanner as they are fed in said direction of motion by said document feeder, providing an output signal in a form of a stream of digital pulses from said electro-optical line scanner, automatically inhibiting the copying of said control sheets, automatically inhibiting the copying of a document sheet which has been so scanned in response to sensing an output signal containing less than a predetermined minimum of said digital pulses in a predetermined time period, and copying a document sheet which has been so scanned, with selected ones of said selectable copier functions, in response to sensing a stream of digital pulses corresponding to the scanning of both a marked said indicia location and its associated pre-printed unique digital incoding pattern.

Claim 8

In a method for automatically variably copying a set of original document sheets in a selectably multi-functional copier wherein said document sheets are automatically fed seriatum by a document feeder in a direction of movement to said copier, the improvement comprising: intermixing, and commonly feeding said document sheets, with said document feeder, correspondingly sized control sheets bearing operator selectably markable optical indicia locations each associated with adjacent pre-printed unique digital optical encoding patterns indicative of unique selectable said copier functions, scanning in the same manner both said document sheets and said control sheets across their transverse dimensions by scanning transversely of said direction of motion with the same stationary electro-optical line scanner as they are fed in said direction of motion by said document feeder, providing an output signal in a form of a stream of digital pulses from said electro-optical line scanner, automatically inhibiting the copying of said control sheets, automatically inhibiting the copying of a document sheet which has been so scanned in response to sensing an output signal containing less than a predetermined minimum of said digital pulses in a predetermined time period, and copying a document sheet which has been so scanned, with selected ones of said selectable copier functions, in response to sensing a stream of digital pulses corresponding to the scanning of both a marked said indicia location and its associated pre-printed unique digital incoding pattern.

Claim 9

In the method of copying in which conventionally sized original document sheets with typewritten or other conventional information indicia on one or both sides thereof are fed by a document feeder to a copier for copying thereof, and which copier has an electronic controller, the improvement comprising: providing a control sheet with a plurality of defined operator selectable marking indicia area locations thereon corresponding to a selection of different selectable copier operations, said control sheet being substantially the same size as the document sheets to be copied and feedable in the same manner as said document sheets by said document feeder, marking said control sheet with conventional marking indicia at selected ones of said selectable indicia area locations thereon corresponding to selected copier operations, feeding said control sheet into said document feeder in the same manner as said document sheets, associated with document sheets whose copying is to be controlled thereby, automatically reading said marking indicia on said control sheet while it is being fed by said document feeder with an optical scanning device which converts said marking indicia to electrical signals, and connecting said electrical signals from said optical scanning device to said electronic controller to control the operation of said copier for the copying of one or more documents fed by said document feeder with said associated control sheet, wherein as a first step said control sheet is generated in said copier.

Claim 10

In the method of copying in which conventionally sized original document sheets with typewritten or other conventional information indicia on one or both sides thereof are fed by a document feeder to a copier for copying thereof, and which copier has an electronic controller, the improvement comprising: providing a control sheet with a plurality of defined operator selectable marking indicia area locations thereon corresponding to a selection of different selectable copier operations, said control sheet being substantially the same size as the document sheets to be copied and feedable in the same manner as said document sheets by said document feeder, marking said control sheet with conventional marking indicia at selected ones of said selectable indicia area locations thereon corresponding to selected copier operations, feeding said control sheet into said document feeder in the same manner as said document sheets, associated with document sheets whose copying is to be controlled thereby, automatically reading said marking indicia on said control sheet while it is being fed by said document feeder with an optical scanning device which converts said marking indicia to electrical signals, and connecting said electrical signals from said optical scanning device to said electronic controller to control the operation of said copier for the copying of one or more documents fed by said document feeder with said associated control sheet, wherein as a first step said control sheet is generated in said copier.

Claim 11

In the method of copying in which conventionally sized original document sheets with tupewritten or other conventional information indicia on one or both sides thereof are fed by a document feeder to a copier for copying thereof, and which copier has an electronic controller, the improvement comprising: providing a control sheet with a plurality of defined operator selectable marking indicia area locations thereon corresponding to a selection of different selectable copier operations, said control sheet being substantially the same size as the document sheets to be copied and feedable in the same manner as said document sheets by said document feeder, marking said control sheet with conventional marking indicia at selected ones of said selectable indicia area locations thereon corresponding to selected copier operations. feeding said control sheet into said document feeder in the same manner as said document sheets, associated with document sheets whose copying is to be controlled thereby, automatically reading said marking indicia on said control sheet while it is being fed by said document feeder with an optical scanning device which converts said marking indicia to electrical signals, and connecting said electrical signals from said optical scanning device to said electronic controller to control the operation of said copier for the copying of one or more documents fed by said document feeder with said associated control sheet, wherein said selectable indicia area locations have associated adjacent unique visual pre-printed encoding, and said encoding is read together with said marking indicia to provide identifiable encoded control signals to said controller.

Claim 12

In the method of copying in which conventionally sized original document sheets with tupewritten or other conventional information indicia on one or both sides thereof are fed by a document feeder to a copier for copying thereof, and which copier has an electronic controller, the improvement comprising: providing a control sheet with a plurality of defined operator selectable marking indicia area locations thereon corresponding to a selection of different selectable copier operations, said control sheet being substantially the same size as the document sheets to be copied and feedable in the same manner as said document sheets by said document feeder, marking said control sheet with conventional marking indicia at selected ones of said selectable indicia area locations thereon corresponding to selected copier operations. feeding said control sheet into said document feeder in the same manner as said document sheets, associated with document sheets whose copying is to be controlled thereby, automatically reading said marking indicia on said control sheet while it is being fed by said document feeder with an optical scanning device which converts said marking indicia to electrical signals, and connecting said electrical signals from said optical scanning device to said electronic controller to control the operation of said copier for the copying of one or more documents fed by said document feeder with said associated control sheet, wherein said selectable indicia area locations have associated adjacent unique visual pre-printed encoding, and said encoding is read together with said marking indicia to provide identifiable encoded control signals to said controller.