Scanners

Scanners are copier devices, used to create digital copies of objects.

Scanners are more often used for making copies of documents, graphics, and even three-dimensional objects placed on the scanner surface.

For most intents and purposes, scanners are little more than clever little colour photcopiers. However, in the office place, scanners often provide a simple alternative to colour photocopying.

As desktop scanners are not simply cheaper, but generally take up less space than a colour photocopier, this makes scanners a useful choice.

The one disadvantage scanners have is that they cannot work at the volume and speed that photocopiers traditionally can.

Types of Scanner

There are two main types of scanner for the office:

Flatbed Scanner

Most commonly, scanners take the form of flatbed scanners, which are long and reasonably flat devices, with a lid you can open to place your material for copying on the scanning surface.

These are most useful for images and graphics.

Document Scanner

Document scanners are more robust machines, specifically designed to deal with copying larger volumes of paper and film documents.

references for Scanners

• Scanners: A range of scanners from Epson, a major supplier.
• Scanners: A range of flatbed and document scanners from A2B Office (UK)
• Scanners: Flatbed scanners from leading brand, Canon
• Image Scanner: description of how image scanning works from Wikipedia
• Scanners: Scanners from Xerox, including flatbed and document