Abstract: The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for processing sheet material, in particular papers of value such as bank notes, checks, etc.

Abstract: In a transmission of data upon employment of binarily coded data signals (D), reception clocks (ET) with which the data signals (D) are sampled in their middles are generated for the recovery of the transmitted data. The reception clocks (ET) are thereby synchronized phase-wise by the synchronization signals (SY) generated from the data signals (D). In order to also be able to sample the data signals (D) in their middles insofar as possible given distortions of the data signals (D) up to 50%, the synchronization signals (SY) are inventively generated taking the respective distortion into consideration. To this end, a counter (Z) is provided that is respectively counted from an initial value up to a final value by high-frequency clock pulses (T3). Given changes of the binary value of the data signals (D), a synchronization unit (SYS) sets the counter (Z) to its initial value.