Abstract: A method of separating and feeding sheets from a stack comprises the steps of bringing a pick-up head into engagement with an intermediate portion of the top sheet of the stack while leaving the opposite ends of the sheet free, applying an air stream from each of the opposite sides of the stack and directed inwardly to impinge against the stack and to cause the free ends of the top sheets of the stack to separate from the underlying sheets, and moving the pick-up head with the picked-up top sheet away from the stack.

Abstract: A sheet feeding apparatus includes an edge aligning device for aligning an edge of individually fed sheets with respect to an underlying table. A tray overlies the table and has an upper sheet-receiving surface for receiving the individually fed sheets. An aligning member mounted to overly the tray includes an aligning wall having a knife edge lightly engageable with the tray. The tray is reciprocated by a reciprocating drive through a forward stroke positioning the tray to receive a sheet on its sheet-receiving surface laterally of the knife edge, and a return stroke moving the sheet-receiving surface towards the knife edge to move the sheet thereon against the knife edge, thereby to align the sheet therewith, and then past the knife edge while further movement of the sheet is arrested by the knife edge, thereby permitting the sheet to drop onto the underlying table.