Patent ID: 8561980

Claim:
A method for avoiding multiple picks during the singling of sheet material from a sheet stack comprising the steps of: feeding sheet material in a transport direction from the sheet stack to a singling gap by means of a feeding device, said singling gap having a first gap side and a second gap side opposite the first gap side, said first gap side defined as facing a first side of the sheet material when passing the singling gap, said second gap side defined as facing a second side of said sheet material when passing the singling gap, and singling the fed sheet material in the singling gap by grasping a sheet of the fed sheet material from the first gap side of the singling gap and guiding on the grasped sheet to a transport device while simultaneously retaining further sheets of the fed sheet material on the second gap side, after the leading edge of the guided-on sheet has reached a position after the singling gap in the transport direction, activating a retaining device different from the feeding device, which acts, in or before, relative to the transport direction, the singling gap, on the fed sheet material from the first gap side and retains sheet material carried along with the guided-on sheet.