Scanner
From Paperless Office
In a perfect world scanners would not be needed for a paperless office. All data would be digital so there would be not paper to scan. However, until we get to that point, a scanner is one of the most important components of your paperless office because it lets you take data printed on physical pieces of paper and turn it into digital data.
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[edit] Types of scanners
There are a number of different types of scanners. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses depending on what you need to scan.
[edit] Sheet-fed scanner
A sheet fed scanner is what you will use for the bulk of your scanning in a paperless office. A sheetfed scanner allows you to put a stack paper into it and scan all of the sheets with a single touch of a button. A good sheet fed scanner will scan both sides of the paper at the same time, so everything can be captured in a single pass.
Sheet fed scanners start around $400 with workgroup models selling in the $2000 to $5000 range. Many high end copier/printers offer scanning capabilities as well. The high end copier/printer solutions are often offer some of the best paper handling capabilities for scanning multiple pages at the same time. They are also very fast compared to many of the other sheet fed options.
[edit] Flatbed scanner
A flatbed scanner allows you to scan one page at a time by placing a document face down in the scanner. For loose sheets this can be very time consuming over using a sheet fed scanner, however it is a simple way to scan a small number of pages from bound material without ruining the binding.
Flatbed scanners are generally the least expensive type of scanner and often have much higher resolution than other types. A good flatbed scanner can be found for less than $100.
Some flatbed scanners include an automatic document feeder that allows them to automatically scan in individual sheets of paper similar to the way a sheet fed scanner works.
[edit] Book scanner
A book scanner allows you to scan bound material without placing the item in a flatbed one page at a time. Most book scanners consist of a device that holds the book open at a 90 degree angle and two high resolution cameras that photograph both pages. Automated models have a robotic arm that uses suction to turn the page automatically. Less expensive models require manual page turns.
Book scanners are very expensive and are generally found as part of projects attempting to scan in old books from libraries. Some do-it-yourself enthusiasts have created book scanners that require manual page turns. By leaving off the complicated robotics they are able to create a very usable system using inexpensive cameras and a bit of a structure to hold the books. [1]
[edit] Hand-held scanner
These aren't in common use anymore, but at one time they were the most affordable scanners available. Pages were scanned by manually sliding the scanner over them. These scanners often included special software to stitch the pages together since most of these types of scanners couldn't scan an entire page at at time. With handheld scanners it was easy to twist them side to side and distort the image being scanned.
[edit] Line scanner
Line scanners are a very rare form of hand-held scanners that scan a single line of text at a time. They may have some value in copying short passages from books.
[edit] Portable scanner
Modern portable scanners are a type of sheet-fed scanner that are usually designed to take a single sheet at a time. These are used for scanning in receipts and other short documents while traveling and are very inconvenient for scanning long documents. There have also been portable versions of hand-held scanners and line scanners.
[edit] LCD screen scanner
In 2003 there was a demonstration of a Toshiba LCD screen that had scanning capabilities but it doesn't look like the technology has been used anywhere.
[edit] Laptop scanner
There have been several prototypes or concepts of laptops with built in sheet fed scanners. IBM even had a mockup that had a built in shredder in addition to a scanner. It doesn't look like there are any commercially available laptops using this technology at this time.
[edit] Camera as a scanner
Digital cameras can be used as scanners. The book scanners mentioned above usually use cameras for the scanning process. The only problem with using a camera is the difficulty of getting the page photographed exactly straight. Most books scanners use some type of image correction software to straighten and and remove warping from the image files.
