Automatic Document Feeder

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In multifunction or all-in-one printers, fax machines and scanners, Automatic Document Feeder or ADF is a feature which takes several pages and feeds the paper one page at a time into the scanner, allowing the user to scan (and thereby copy, print, or fax) multiple-page documents without having to manually replace each page.

On most copiers, you have a choice of 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 multipage 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 (RADF) scans one side of a page, then flips it and scans the other side. A Duplexing Automatic Document Feeder (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 ipm (images per minute), the number of sides they can scan each minute.