An apparatus of this above type is already known from German Patent DE-PS No. 2 156 505. In this apparatus, two rollers are used, disposed following the last printing station spaced apart from both sides of the paper web, and being driven at approximately the linear speed of the web. In the event of a tear in the web, these capturing rollers are positioned resiliently against one another, so that the torn web can be wound about one of the capturing rollers. As a result, the torn web is prevented from becoming wound about one of the cylinders of the printing station, which would cause severe damage to the cylinder and its bearings. The disadvantage of this known capturing apparatus is that a certain response time must elapse between the determination that a tear in the web has occurred and the capture of the torn web by the capturing rollers, because the capturing rollers must be moved together, that is, positioned against one another first, which naturally requires a certain amount of time. Furthermore, the capturing rollers are moved apart during non-problematic or normal operation, to avoid smearing of the freshly-printed web; this has the further disadvantage, however, that during normal operation these capturing rollers have no function whatever to perform.
A paper capturing apparatus is known from German Patent DE-PS No. 558 071 in which the capturing rollers are in constant contact with the web. These rollers are carried along over the web only by friction, however, so that the smearing of fresh ink onto the rollers is unavoidable.