Abstract: A replacement cartridge for replacing spent ink ribbon on a continuous printer. The cartridge interfaces with the printer including a print head past which a document is advanced, a drive for feeding the ribbon tape, and a source of vacuum for effecting vacuum zones in which the feeding tape is buffered against acceleration shock. Included in the cartridge are a supply and takeup reel for the ribbon and between which the ribbon extends in a defined feed path through a pair of tape buffering vacuum chambers upstream and downstream of the print head. Magnets secure the cartridge to the printer at a guided interface in registry with the operative components of the printer. Pre-loading the ribbon in the cartridge entirely threaded throughout its feed path, enables replacement to be performed in a minimum of time requiring only the removal of the spent cartridge and immediately replacing it with the cartridge containing the reload of fresh ribbon.

Abstract: An overlapped document detector for a document handling apparatus comprises an air knife in the primary document path to separate overlapped documents and forward them along separate ones of two secondary paths. Optical detectors focused on each secondary path, detects documents to detect an overlapped condition. A vacuum is created to maintain the documents in their respective secondary paths for detection purposes.