It has previously been proposed, see U.S. Pat. No. 4,373,713, to subdivide cut sheets which are cut from a continuous substrate web. The substrate web is supplied to a rotating cylinder pair by continuously operating transport means, such as transport belts. Deflection tongues are located behind the cylinder pair. Each cylinder of the cylinder pair has a segment which projects out of the circumferential surface of the cylinder into the selected transport path for the printed substrate. The circumferential position of the segments, and the speed of the cylinder pairs, with respect to the speed and position of the received web, are so synchronized or related to each other that the segment of one cylinder guides the substrate beneath a fixed deflection tongue and then into a first transport path, while the segment of the other cylinder guides the substrate over the deflection into a second transport path.
The sheets which are supplied are already severed from a web, so that an additional cutter element must be provided in order to cut the sheets from a continuous substrate. This increases the size of the apparatus.