Patent ID: 7016090

Claim:
An ADF (Automatic Document Feeder) comprising: a feed tray configured to allow documents to be stacked thereon with front sides facing upward; a receipt tray positioned below said feed tray, but above a scanning position, and configured to allow each document having one side or both sides scanned at said scanning position to be driven out to said receipt tray, said receipt tray being angularly movable such that an outlet side thereof opens; feeding means for sequentially feeding a top document to a bottom document stacked on said feed tray one by one while separating each document from underlying documents; first conveying means for reversing the document fed by said feeding means and conveying said document to the scanning position; second conveying means for conveying the document from the scanning position to a shared path available for both of a one-side scanning mode and a both-side scanning mode, reversing said document, and again conveying said document to said scanning position; switchback conveying means for conveying the document reversed by said second conveying means via said shared path to a switchback path below said receipt tray; guide means constructed integrally with said receipt tray for reversing the document driven out of said switchback path by said switchback conveying means in the reverse direction toward an outlet via said shared path; third conveying means for conveying the document conveyed from the scanning position toward said outlet via said shared path to said receipt tray; switching means for steering the document toward one of said shared path, said switchback path and a reversal path along which the document reversed after scanning is again brought to the scanning position; covering means for covering part of said second conveying means, said guide means and said switching means to thereby delimit said shared path, said covering means being angularly movable for uncovering said shared path; and control means for causing said switching means to steer, in the both-side scanning mode, said document whose both sides have been scanned toward said shared path or to steer, in the one-side scanning mode, said document whose one side has been scanned toward said switchback path.