JP2976902B

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reduce an installation area of a case by dividing an outer case of the original reader into two, which reads an original placed on a glass plate with an area, and matching a width of the outer case of the reader in a subscanning direction with an actual use size. SOLUTION: In the original reader, an original is placed on a transparent plate member 1, and an optical section 3 that is placed at the opposite side to the original on the plate member and reads the original to generate a read signal is moved to read the original in the subscanning direction orthogonal to the main scanning direction to read the original. An outer case that contains the optical section 3, a mobile mechanism (21A, 21B, 25, 26A, 26B, 28) moving the optical section 3 in the subscanning direction and an electric circuit 2 to process the read signal from the optical section 3 is separated into two in the subscanning direction to form 1st and 2nd case halves 4, 5 and at least one case half is moved in the subscanning direction.