How to choose the right document scanner?

There are so many document scanners to choose from these days. As you can see on the following images, there are SOHO scanner (far left), workgroup scanner, departmental scanner, and there are production scanner (far right).

How do you know which scanner to choose that meet your needs?

Here are something you should take into consideration when looking for a new document scanner: It is our own version of unofficial scanner buyer's guide. What is the Purpose: What is the use of this new scanner? Light volume scanning of customer information on the front desk? Scanning large volume of documents in the back office? Or anything in between? What software are you going to use. You don't want to purchase a scanner first and look for software later. Find your software first. No all scanners will work with the software of your choice. Budget: It is a waste of your time to compare production scanners to workgroup scanners if your budget is under $2.000 - enough for a good workgroup scanner or entry level departmental scanner. You want to take maintenance cost into consideration too. Maintenance kit, annual maintenance cost of high-end scanner alone usually cost more than an entire scanner of an entry level scanner. Duty Cycle: What is the average scanning volume per day? Is it just under 100 pages a day? 1500 pages a days? or over 100,000 pages a day? Light duty scanners usually slow ( 25 Pages Per Minute), compare to 50 or more Pages Per Minute for departmental scanner, or 80 Pages Per Minute or more for production scanner. Be specific. At least have a ballpark of your daily scanning volume. "A lot of scanning" is not a good answer. "A lot" may mean 5000 pages a day while it could means 50 pages to someone else. Trying to use an entry-level document scanner to scan 5,000 pages per day is like biking across Trans Canada Highway. The scanning speed is one thing, the duty cycle is another thing. Your entry level scanner will break down in just a couple of months for high volume scanning. Keep in mind that normal wear and tear of consumable items such as pick rollers are not included in the manufacturer warranty.  Scanning Speed: High volume scanner usually offer faster scanning speed. Entry level scanners usually offer about 25 Pages Per Minute scanning speed. The faster the speed, the more documents you can scan and capture. Don't complain later trying to use entry level scanner to handle high volume scanning. Slow scanners will always take more time get work done. ADF Capacity: How many documents you want to scan in a batch without "baby sitting" the scanning process? Most entry-level document scanners can take up to 50 sheets, 40 pages in most cases.  Large ADF capacity such as those found on production scanner usually can take 200 sheets to 500 sheets, some can even take 700 sheets. The larger the ADF capacity, the more productive you are (without user intervention). Go for a short break  when the scanner is scanning. ADF vs. Flatbed scanner: Almost all ADF (sheet-fed) scanners with its small footprint require less desktop space. Before purchase a flatbed scanner, find out if you have enough desktop space to accommodate a flatbed scanner. Some hard copy documents can be very fragile or delicate, and you don't wan to take any chance feeding fragile document through ADF. Consider optional A3 or A4 Tethered Flatbed or a flatbed scanner. If you scan fragile documents, pages from book or magazine only from time to time, a scanner with both flatbed and ADF is a good choice, or consider a small and cheaper flatbed scanner as a supplement to your main ADF scanner. In most cases, ADF scanner should meet your document management need. Simplex vs. Duplex: Do you need to scan in both sides of the documents on one scan? Duplex scanners can scan both sides of your documents in one scan. This feature speed up the scanning process. That is why IPM is usually double of PPM. On the other hand, if you scan only on side of the document, why pay more for a duplex scanner. Simplex scanners usually cost less than duplex scanners. Wide format vs. Standard: Do you need to scan 11"x17"? If all document you need to scan are letter or legal size, why pay more for wide format scanner? Scanners that allow you to feed the documents horizontally (landscape) always get more works done faster than those scanners that can only accept document vertically (portrait). Scan plastic Card and all kind of paper sizes: Do you need to scan in health card? driver's license? Credit card? Membership card? Some document scanner allows you to can in plastic cards. Not all document scanners have the capability to accept plastic card, and heavy stock paper.

ScanFront 300 Fujitsu fi-6130 Canon-DR-6010C