Patent ID: 7635126

Claim:
In a method for gathering printed sheets, wherein one individual sheet is withdrawn from each of several sources, each source composed of identical sheets; and the withdrawn sheets are delivered to a collecting conveyor in order to form collated stacks; the improvement comprising that: each source of the sheets is stack, supported by air pressure (P) of an air cushion (LP) above a basin floor, each stack having a bottom sheet and residual stack above the bottom sheet; while the air cushion continuously supports the entire source stack, at least a region of the bottom sheet of the source stack is lifted off the residual stack with a separating tool; as the bottom sheet is lifted off the residual stack the air cushion (LP) is produced between the bottom sheet and the entire residual stack, thereby completely separating the bottom sheet from the residual stack to drop onto the basin floor while supporting an entire remaining source stack having a following bottom sheet and remaining residual stack above the basin floor; and the separated bottom sheet is delivered as said withdrawn sheet to the collecting conveyor.