Abstract: A paper transporter for use in conjunction with an optical character reader carries a sheet of paper to be read on a rotatable drum driven by a pair of opposed belts located at one end of the drum. One of the belts is canted slightly in order to steer the paper against a peripherally extending reference edge thereby locating the paper longitudinally and stabilizing its spatial orientation. The other belt is oriented in a direction that is substantially transverse to the longitudinal axis of the drum (not canted) so that it drives the drum and the interposed paper at a highly uniform speed as it passes a scanning device of the optical character reader. Both the steering belt and the drive belt are relatively narrow and grip only an edge portion of the page being scanned so that all of the printed portion of a typical page is exposed to the scanner.