Patent ID: 6997455

Claim:
A method to correct skew of a sheet being fed to a processing station, the sheet having a machine readable position locator adjacent a leading edge of the sheet with first and second portions of the position locator being associated respectively with first and second side edges respectively of the sheet wherein a proper orientation of the sheet entering the processing station being defined by an alignment of the position locator portions, the method comprising: a) advancing the sheet continuously in a forward direction towards the processing station until only one or another of the position locator portions is detected, the detection of only one locator portion indicating a skewed orientation of the sheet relative to the processing station; b) dithering, by stepping first rearward and then forward, a side edge of the sheet associated with the detected locator portion while continuously advancing the opposite side edge in a forward direction; c) repeating the dithering of step (b) while continuously advancing the opposite side edge of the sheet until the locator portion associated with the opposite side edge is detected; and thereafter d) advancing the sheet in a forward direction to the processing station.