The present application is based on, and claims priority from JP Application Serial Number 2020-129379, filed Jul. 30, 2020, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

1. Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to an image reader provided with a reading means configured to read a medium.

2. Related Art

In a scanner, which is an example of an image reader, a method may be adopted, as a medium separating method, in which a medium is nipped by a separating roller that is applied with rotational resistance, or torque in a reverse direction, and a feeding roller that rotates in a direction in which the medium is fed, to separate the medium. JP 2003-176052 A discloses an image scanner provided with a manuscript transport device that employs such a separation method.

For a feeding device, a method may be employed for contacting, among a plurality of media placed on a medium placement unit, the lowest medium or the bottommost medium, to send out the medium. Hereinafter, the lowest medium to be sent out is referred to as a leading medium, and a medium above the leading medium is referred to as a subsequent medium.

When the leading medium is sent out, due to friction force between the leading medium and the subsequent medium, the subsequent medium is also about to be sent out. At this time, a leading end of the subsequent medium is held back by a separating roller, but when rigidity of the subsequent medium is low, that leading end deflects along a feeding direction upstream of a nip position between the separating roller and a feeding roller, which may cause a jam later.

It is difficult to solve the problem described above, thus it is desirable to employ a plurality of means for solving the problem described above from the perspective of reliability of the problem solution, however, an increase in user operations for that is not desirable from the perspective of usability of the device.

SUMMARY

An image reader of the present disclosure for solving the above-described problem includes a medium placement unit on which a medium is placed, a feeding roller configured to contact a surface facing the medium placement unit of the medium placed on the medium placement unit, and rotate, to feed the medium, a separating roller provided at a position facing the feeding roller, and configured to nip the medium together with the feeding roller, and a reading means configured to read the medium fed by the feeding roller, wherein a curvature forming unit configured to contact the medium upstream of a nip position between the feeding roller and the separating roller in a feeding direction of the medium, and to form a curvature in the medium along a width direction intersecting the feeding direction is provided, the curvature forming unit is capable of switching between a first state for forming the curvature in the medium, and a second state positioned in a direction retracted from a feeding path of the medium compared to the first state, a device body including the medium placement unit, the feeding roller, the separating roller, the reading means, and the curvature forming unit is capable of switching between a first device posture, and a second device posture in which a posture of the medium placement unit is closer to horizontal compared to the first device posture, and the curvature forming unit is associated with posture switching of the device body, is in the second state when the device body takes the first device posture, and is in the first state when the device body takes the second device posture.

