Patent ID: 7702276

Claim:
An automatic document feeder for allowing documents stacked on a document tray to be automatically passed through an image reading section disposed at a given position, and ejected to a document catch tray, comprising: a front plate located on a given one of opposite sides of said document feeder in a direction orthogonal to a feeding direction of the documents on said document tray, the front plate having opposite upper and lower edges; a rear plate located on the other side in said orthogonal direction and in opposed relation to said front plate so that the front and rear plates are spaced apart along a front-to-rear direction; a first transport path located between said front plate and said rear plate, and adapted to guide the document fed from said document tray, to said image reading section; a second transport path located between said front plate and said rear plate, and adapted to guide said document passed through said document tray, to said document catch tray; and a feeder cover attached to a feeder body of said automatic document feeder in an openable and closable manner, said feeder cover defining a part of said first transport path when the feeder cover is in a closed position and exposes said first transport path when the feeder is in an opened position, the feeder cover having a lower edge that abuts on top of the upper edge of the front plate when the feeder cover is in the closed position, wherein the upper edge of said front plate is formed to be located at a height substantially equal to a lower surface of said first transport path, said upper edge facing outwardly and away from the second transport path and being formed in a shape substantially in conformity to a shape of said first transport path when viewed from a side of the front plate and in the front-to-rear direction to allow the document located in a region of said first transport path between one end of said first transport path on the side of said document tray and the vicinity of said image reading section to be visually checked when viewed from the side of said front plate in said orthogonal direction.