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In multifunction or all-in-one printers, fax machines, photocopiers and scanners, an automatic document feeder or ADF is a feature which takes several pages and feeds the paper one page at a time into a scanner or copier, [1] allowing the user to scan, and thereby copy, print, or fax, multiple-page documents without having to manually replace each page.
A photocopier is a machine that makes copies of documents and other visual images onto paper or plastic film quickly and cheaply. Most modern photocopiers use a technology called xerography, a dry process that uses electrostatic charges on a light-sensitive photoreceptor to first attract and then transfer toner particles onto paper in the form of an image. Heat, pressure or a combination of both is then used to fuse the toner onto the paper. Copiers can also use other technologies such as ink jet, but xerography is standard for office copying. Earlier versions included the Gestetner stencil duplicator, invented by David Gestetner in 1881.
An image scanner—often abbreviated to just scanner, although the term is ambiguous out of context —is a device that optically scans images, printed text, handwriting or an object and converts it to a digital image. Commonly used in offices are variations of the desktop flatbed scanner where the document is placed on a glass window for scanning. Hand-held scanners, where the device is moved by hand, have evolved from text scanning "wands" to 3D scanners used for industrial design, reverse engineering, test and measurement, orthotics, gaming and other applications. Mechanically driven scanners that move the document are typically used for large-format documents, where a flatbed design would be impractical.
Printing is a process for reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The earliest known form of printing as applied to paper was woodblock printing, which appeared in China before 220 AD. Later developments in printing technology include the movable type invented by Bi Sheng around 1040 AD and the printing press invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. The technology of printing played a key role in the development of the Renaissance and the scientific revolution, and laid the material basis for the modern knowledge-based economy and the spread of learning to the masses.
Most copiers allow scanning on the flatbed or platen (the "glass") or through a document feeder. The vast majority of fax machines have an ADF, allowing the unattended sending of multi-page faxes. Due to the ubiquity of ADF in fax machines, some fax machine owners use the fax machine as a scanner, faxing multi-page documents to themselves. Document feeders are described by speed, in pages per minute or ppm, and capacity, usually in a range from 10 sheets to 200.
There are two kinds of document feeders capable of two-sided (duplex) scanning: a reversing automatic document feeder or RADF scans one side of a page, then flips it and scans the other side. A duplexing automatic document feeder or DADF scans both sides in one pass. The advantage of the DADF is faster speed for two-sided originals. RADFs and DADFs are rated in images per minute (IPM), the number of sides they can scan each minute; this may depend upon the resolution being used (rather than the maximum resolution supported).
