Seeking document scanner with feeder
March 1, 2022 8:04 AM Subscribe
I'm researching a document scanner with a feeder to help scan paper records at my office. We have a great scanner for oversized things, fragile paper, transparencies and slides, but I think one that would quickly power through regular paperwork would be a good addition to have. Any recommendations would be great.
Everyone I've ever known who had to scan in documents on a regular basis used a Fujitsu ScanSnap: https://www.fujitsu.com/us/products/computing/peripheral/scanners/
Home users, small businesses, large businesses, my doctor's office, the DMV, everyone seems to have a Fujitsu ScanSnap of some kind.
posted by ralan at 8:17 AM on March 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
Home users, small businesses, large businesses, my doctor's office, the DMV, everyone seems to have a Fujitsu ScanSnap of some kind.
posted by ralan at 8:17 AM on March 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
Does your company already pay someone for printing? This is often built in to commercial printing machines that you would have an existing contract for. Have you made sure your existing printer doesn't have this capability? Sometimes it's surprising but there can be a hatch you can open that all of a sudden provides this.
posted by bbqturtle at 8:18 AM on March 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by bbqturtle at 8:18 AM on March 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
zero hassle, but expense: nthing a ScanSnap. They own the market.
some hassle, but you might already have: low-medium range Brother AIO laser printers have an incredible ADF that does fast duplex scans. Unfortunately, the UX to access the scanner is foul. If you can live with the pain of programming a couple of presets - and for me, that's scanning to a folder on a network share as medium resolution greyscale PDF - it's surprisingly decent. There are all sorts of clever document-management tricks hidden away in the printer's configuration web page (like the option of producing signed, secure PDF/A).
Brother's "Scan to PC" driver software is hilariously awful and should be avoided.
posted by scruss at 8:36 AM on March 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
some hassle, but you might already have: low-medium range Brother AIO laser printers have an incredible ADF that does fast duplex scans. Unfortunately, the UX to access the scanner is foul. If you can live with the pain of programming a couple of presets - and for me, that's scanning to a folder on a network share as medium resolution greyscale PDF - it's surprisingly decent. There are all sorts of clever document-management tricks hidden away in the printer's configuration web page (like the option of producing signed, secure PDF/A).
Brother's "Scan to PC" driver software is hilariously awful and should be avoided.
posted by scruss at 8:36 AM on March 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
nthing the Fujitsu ScanSnap. I also want to mention in connection with bluesky78987's comment that there's a setting in the software so that, instead of finishing scanning when the last piece of paper goes through, it asks you if you want to continue scanning, in which case you can put more paper in and it adds to your current scan, or finish scanning, which causes it to finish the file and then prompt you for what you want to do with it.
posted by TimHare at 8:52 AM on March 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by TimHare at 8:52 AM on March 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
Whatever you get, make sure it handles double-sided scanning automatically.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 9:15 AM on March 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Winnie the Proust at 9:15 AM on March 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
Disclaimer: I work in document imaging, and we're a Canon shop:
The Canon scanner comparable to the Fujitsus is the Canon DR-C225, which has a little smaller footprint but is about the same in features -- color, doublesided, speed, construction quality. If you have a bit bigger of a budget, the DR-M160 is faster and better quality; it is designed to scan hundreds to thousands of pages a day. Both are really nice scanners and we have a lot of these out in office environments where they're scanning all day long. Some of our customers do have Fujitsu scanners due to their being cheaper and used in places that isn't scanning much (usually it's the ScanSnap 1300 which is a "I only need to scan a few things" level scanner). If you've got a really big budget and a lot to scan, a Canon DR-G1100 (or that family) are the big boys, designed to scan fast and all day long, and do up to 11 inch wide.
posted by AzraelBrown at 9:48 AM on March 1, 2022
The Canon scanner comparable to the Fujitsus is the Canon DR-C225, which has a little smaller footprint but is about the same in features -- color, doublesided, speed, construction quality. If you have a bit bigger of a budget, the DR-M160 is faster and better quality; it is designed to scan hundreds to thousands of pages a day. Both are really nice scanners and we have a lot of these out in office environments where they're scanning all day long. Some of our customers do have Fujitsu scanners due to their being cheaper and used in places that isn't scanning much (usually it's the ScanSnap 1300 which is a "I only need to scan a few things" level scanner). If you've got a really big budget and a lot to scan, a Canon DR-G1100 (or that family) are the big boys, designed to scan fast and all day long, and do up to 11 inch wide.
posted by AzraelBrown at 9:48 AM on March 1, 2022
Response by poster: We'll likely not be scanning hundreds of pages a day - it will probably be one intern sitting there sorting through the file and scanning as they go. Some of the files will be pretty thick but having to sort will slow the process down some. We'd like the scanner to last a while as well as be easy to use. (We have a great intern now who we could throw anything at, but she is a precious and rare gem.)
posted by PussKillian at 10:05 AM on March 1, 2022
posted by PussKillian at 10:05 AM on March 1, 2022
If you need volume and speed, Canon's imageFORMULA R40 can scan at 40 pages per minute and the feeder can take up to 60 pages at once.
posted by kschang at 10:42 AM on March 1, 2022
posted by kschang at 10:42 AM on March 1, 2022
We've used four Fujitsu Fi6230 ADF scanners (predecessor to the SnapScan series) to chew through some 1400 documents, for the largest part computer manuals and related stuff, A4/letter size, totalling about 50TB. AFAICR one needed a new set of transport rollers, but as they were all second-hand that wasn't surprising. Apart from that, no real problems even with documents that must have been hard on the feeder, some up to 50 years old and nearly all stored for 15 to 20 years not under archival conditions.
(Took well over a year at one or two evenings per week. With four scanners running you could just about keep up with getting the pages out of a binder or wrestling the staples out of a bundle, then feeding the sheets into the hopper)
posted by Stoneshop at 11:31 AM on March 1, 2022
(Took well over a year at one or two evenings per week. With four scanners running you could just about keep up with getting the pages out of a binder or wrestling the staples out of a bundle, then feeding the sheets into the hopper)
posted by Stoneshop at 11:31 AM on March 1, 2022
ScanSnap is the best of the scanners in that form factor, and you can finesse the feed a little by staggering stacks as you develop the touch.
For more capacity or speed the best bargain is a used copier with a network scanning function; they can be had very cheaply but they take up a lot of space if you don't need it to copy or print.
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:41 PM on March 1, 2022
For more capacity or speed the best bargain is a used copier with a network scanning function; they can be had very cheaply but they take up a lot of space if you don't need it to copy or print.
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:41 PM on March 1, 2022
For low- to mid-volume, nibble at it as you go scanning, Fujitsu ScanSnap. For bulk, high-volume, we need to convert boxes and boxes of paper records sort of scanning, Panasonic KV-S series. Up to 750-sheet feeder capacity, double-feed detection, up to 140 pages/280 duplex images per minute.
posted by xedrik at 7:58 AM on March 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by xedrik at 7:58 AM on March 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: I ended up with the Fujitsu ScanSnap, and so far it's been excellent. Got a lot of praise from other staff members for being easy to use.
posted by PussKillian at 1:00 PM on March 31, 2022
posted by PussKillian at 1:00 PM on March 31, 2022
This thread is closed to new comments.
Caveat - only about 25 pages can go in the feeder at a time. If your doc is longer, you have to wait for it to be almost done then slide more pages in behind.
posted by bluesky78987 at 8:16 AM on March 1, 2022 [4 favorites]