PLURAL BELT DOCUMENT FEEDER

In a document feeder with a belt platen transport system for transporting document sheets over the platen of a copier under an imaging backing surface closely overlying the platen and into a registration position for imaging the document sheets, with a registration system for stopping the document sheets at the registration position, the belt platen transport system including plural spaced belts engaging the document sheet sufficiently to provide its transport into registration with movement of the belts means, the belt platen transport system being adapted to allow slippage of the belts relative to the document sheet at the registration system, the registration system having document registration fingers insertable into the transport path of the document sheet at the registration position from between the belts, against which fingers the document sheet is driven by the belts for registration; the improvement wherein: the registration- system includes energy absorbers, preferably a preloaded buckling column spring acting independently on each registration finger, to automatically absorb a substantial portion of the impact of a document sheet with the registration fingers, to protect the document sheet from damage, by providing preset resilient energy absorbing limited movement of the registration fingers by the impact of the document sheet thereagainst in the direction of movement of the document sheet and the belts to slightly beyond the registration position, while maintaining the registration fingers in the path of the document sheet, and the automatic return of the document sheet to the registration position by automatic reverse movement of the registration fingers after their impact energy absorbing movement, with sufficient total preset spring force to resist the driving force of the belts on the document sheet against the fingers with slippage between the belts and the document sheet so that the document sheet is stopped at the registration position without stopping the belts.