Patent ID: RE45207

Claim:
A sheet treating apparatus including: sheet discharging means for discharging a sheet; first stacking means for receiving the sheets discharged by said sheet discharging means; aligning means for aligning the discharged sheets to be made into a sheet bundle on said first stacking means by a pinching movement effected by first and second aligning members shiftable independently in a sheet width-wise direction perpendicular to a sheet discharging direction; stapling means shiftable along an end of the sheet bundle in said sheet width-wise direction and configured to staple the sheet bundle aligned by the aligning means on said first stacking means; a plurality of driving means for driving said first and second aligning members independently; controlling means for controlling said driving means; and transferring means for transferring the sheet bundle on said first stacking means to a second stacking means, wherein a first sheet bundle is aligned by using a first reference position obtained by shifting one of said first and second aligning members by a predetermined amount with respect to a lateral edge of the discharged sheet, and then a second sheet bundle is aligned by using a second reference position obtained by shifting the other aligning member by a predetermined amount with respect to a lateral edge of the discharged sheet, thereby the first sheet bundle and the second sheet bundle are made offset relative to each other, and such sheet bundle aligning operations are effected alternately for successive sheet bundles , and said controlling means is adapted to control said stapling device so that said stapling device is moved to respective positions corresponding to said first and second alignment positions to perform a stapling operation .