Document Imaging Scanners Come With Surprising Capabilities

What the basic document imaging scanner does is to capture the red-green-blue light information from a scanned document. This information is then saved by the scanner software in a standard graphic format file, such as a JPEG file.

Scanners are mainly business equipment and have to cater to business needs that are related to the above basic function. Hence they come in various configurations and with many add-on features and software.

In the list below, we look at some standard features of scanners and how they tend to vary from scanner to scanner.

  • Page size indicates the size of documents the scanner can scan. Desktop scanners typically come with a page size of 8.5x14 inches while production level scanners can have page sizes of 12x18 inches
  • Feeder capacity stands for the number of sheets that the feeder tray of the scanner can accommodate. It ranges from single sheet to 25 or 50 sheets common for desktops to 500 to 1000 sheets in production levels
  • Computer interfaces are connectors that attach the scanner to the computer. These days, they come as USB 2.0 or SCSI or Firewire or Network connectors
  • Scanning speeds indicate the number of sheets the scanner can scan a minute, and range from 'one sided' 10 to 30 pages for desktops to 75 to 200 pages for production levels
  • Recommended maximum number of scans a day vary from 500 or 1000 pages for desktops through 5000 or 10000 pages for departmental scanners to 60000 or 200000 pages for production levels
  • Resolution indicates the number of dots per inch, horizontally and vertically, that make up the picture. The higher the number of dots, the better the picture. It varies from 400 dotsx400 dots per inch (DPI) to 600x600
  • Simplex scanners scan one side while duplex scanning involves both sides of the sheet
  • The Rescan features helps improve image quality; Multifeed detection checks whether two or more sheets have been fed instead of the correct single sheet feed; Color scanners can reproduce colors; scanners can be Mac Compatibile in addition to Windows compatible; and so on.

Other features include autocrop and image endorsement. Autocrop adjusts the image size to that of the original. All images would be the same size otherwise. Image endorsing stamps text or numbers on images.

Prices of the scanners depend on the kinds of features that come with the scanner. At the time of this writing, desktop scanners come in the range of $300 to $3000; departmental scanners are $1500 to $7000; and production level scanners cost $15000 to $75000.

Value Adding Software

Scanners usually come with value-adding software such as OCR, forms processing, image quality improvement faciliies, etc.

Document imaging scanners come with increasing numbers of features, capabilities and add-on software. There are inexpensive desktop scanners for very small businesses, departmental scanners for large departments and production level scanners that can handle very heavy scanning workload.

Scanners also come with varying capabilities such as the number of pages they can scan in a minute or day, the sizes of documents they can accommodate, the resolution of the images they produce, and so on.

Document imaging scanners typically come with add-on software for character recognition and image quality improvement.