Recommendation wanted, fast document scanner

[Rich Pasco]

I need to reduce several four-drawer filing cabinets full of paper to
a handful of CD-ROMs. My venerable flatbed parallel-port Visioneer
Paperport 6000 is just too slow to do the job.

I'm looking for a scanner with an ADF that really works (so I don't
spend my days clearing paper jams) that can hold up to 50 sheets and
scan 20-30 US letter-size pages per minute at 300 pixel/inch bi-level.
And I'd like to get it for under US $400.

Any recommendations?

- Rich

 

[eljainc]

Dear Rich,

I don't know if you will be able to find a new scanner which will do
this for $400 or less. For example, Xerox has the Documate 510 and it
scans at up to 15 ppm and has a 50 sheet feeder. The cost of this
beauty is $300-350. If you go to a 20ppm scanner, the cost will most
likely be in the $450-500 range at least, if not more.

One thing you may consider if you don't mind a used scanner is to look
on eBay for high speed scanner. There are Fujitsu, Panasonic scanners
there from time to time. You can spend less than $200 for them there.

Good luck.
Mike

 

[drietow]

You may want to shop your local copy stores.
At work we have a copier that also scans and does it very quick and
does a good job. At your copy store you may be able to rent time on
one of their systems.

You may also want to ask around and perhaps you know someone with a
system you can rent time on after business ours.

Buying may not be your best option.

 

[Rich Pasco]

My local Kinko's will do the job, sort of.
It's $14.95 setup plus $0.09/page plus $10 per CD-ROM burned.
You need to leave your documents with their operator and come
back in a few days. Not good for anything confidential.
At their per-page rate, a single filing-cabinet full (4000 pages)
would pay for a scanner.

Breaking the job into pieces would necessitate more setup charges
and CD-ROM charges and trips to the store.

I think it makes more sense to buy a slower pages/minute scanner
than I originally envisioned--still faster than boxing documents
and schlepping them to Kinko's.

- Rich

 

[drietow]

In my last job I had an HP 7450 scanner. It's the 7400 with the ADF.
This is a slow scanner but it will hold 50 pages. You can still find
them on Ebay from time to time.
It's USB 1 but also has a SCSI adapter if you have one and that speeds
things up considerably. With a SCSI adapter it's probably as fast as
todays USB-2.
What's nice about this scanner is that it doubles as a flat bed for
color prints and came with templates for film and negatives. It works
hand in hand with Acrobat writer very well. In fact it will ask you if
the pages are double sided. Once you scan the fist side of 50 pages it
tell you to turn them around and it scans the other sides. Once
completed it will sort them so you don't have to.

This scanner also works with Vuescan.

A word about Acrobat PDF. If you don't care about OCR then PDF is the
format I suggest. It creates compressed files that just about anyone
can use. There are two versions of Acrobat. The free reader that
just reads and the (you pay for) writer software.

A final word about this scanner, it's noisy. It gets noisier with the
higher DPI setters you select. Also this scanner will scan Legal pages
however most ADF will handle Legal even if the glass will only do
letter.

A final word about OCR. It's not perfect and you will spend a lot of
time (valuable time) messing with it. For that reason I only do PDF.

I hope this helps. There are newer scanners on the market but I don't
have experience with them.

Good luck. I hope this helps.

 

[David Chien]

Canon DR-2080C

This baby literally gobbles up hundreds of pages per hour (easily an
entire book in 1-2 hours), does a great job at avoiding jams on most
paper types, does double-sided scanning in B&W and color, has a very
good auto exposure for OCR scans, etc, etc.

Highly recommended - our baby goes through 100+ a day for a year+ w/o a
problem.