This invention relates to collators for printers.
Among the peripheral equipment for a computer, a printer is an important one. For the output of the printer, collating is an important function. Conventional collators customarily use a multiple tray structure to sort the printed sheets. Such a design is very complicated and hence very costly.
A conventional multiple tray collator typically has the following operation. If a stack of document has, say, 5 pages, the pages are numbered as #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5. If three copies are to be outputted, the output can have at least the three following modes:
(1) Select in the first tray three copies #1, #1, #1; in the second tray three copies #2, #2, #2; in the third tray three copies #3, #3, #3; in the fourth tray three copies #4, #4, #4; and in the fifth tray three copies #5, #5, #5. Then the copies in each tray are taken out and manually collate them in the order #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 into three stacks.
(2) Select in the first tray five pages #1, #2, #3, #4, #5; in the second tray five pages #1, #2, #3, #4, #5; in the third tray five pages #1, #2, #3, #4, #5.
(3) Select different numbers for different pages. For instance: the first tray has five pages, #1, #2, #3, #4, #5; the second tray has three pages #1, #2, #3; and the third tray has four pages #1, #3, #4, #5,
In all the foregoing output traditional methods, a multiple tray collating equipment is used. The structure is very complicated, costly and unreliable.
An object of this invention is to use a single tray to collate papers for a printer. Another object of this invention is to provide a collator which simplifies the structure, reduces the cost and is more reliable. Still another object of the invention is to miniaturize the collator to be lighter and thinner.
These objects are achieved by using a single tray and moving the tray in different positions to collate the printed papers into different stacks. The movement may be a linear one or a circular one. The printed papers can be collated into multiple numbers of stacks.