Unlike common desktop scanners intended mainly for scanning photographs, document scanners are characterized by their robust design and by availability of an automated document feeder as they are intended for daily scanning of large document batches that need to be converted into digital format.

Document scanners can be divided into three categories depending on the intended daily workload:

  • Desktop scanners for scanning several hundred pages per day, with a document feeder for up to 15 sheets of paper;
  • Workgroup scanners for scanning up to 10,000 pages per day, with a document feeder for up to 50 sheets of paper;
  • Production scanners for scanning of up to 20,000 pages per day, with a document feeder for 100 pages.

This division is also reflected in purchase price levels in the ranges of thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands of Czech crowns.

If required, document scanners can usually be equipped with an (additional) flat bed to enable scanning of documents that cannot be placed into the automatic document feeder.

They are most often available for A4 or A3 document formats and they can, of course, scan both sides of the document during one pass, both in black and white or in color. The more sophisticated devices are also equipped with an ultrasonic sensor that alerts the operator if multiple pages are fed at once. Optical resolution of the scanners is usually up to 600 DPI. The scanning speed of a middle-category scanner is around 30 pages per minute.

Scanners are most often connected to computers over USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 interfaces. Network scanners are also available. Professional products are factory equipped with ISIS standard drivers that are required by some scanning applications. As an added value, some scanners are supplied with software for automatic image enhancement (for example Kofax VirtualReScan or Fujitsu PaperStream IP).

When purchasing a scanner, it is important to ensure an accessible and required level of support provided by the vendor (possibility of on-site repair or faulty unit replacement, and/or at least the possibility of spare device provision for the period of repair in order to reduce the scanning outage period unless you have your own backup device available), availability of consumables (such as rubber rollers and pads for automated document feeder), ease of consumables replacement by the scanner operator and not only by service technician, and last, but not least, the possibility of easy cleaning of user accessible components.

In addition to document scanners, there are also special large format scanners for technical drawings or A6 scanners for scanning of identification documents, as well as mobile scanners for working in the field.

IXTENT offers its customers document scanners manufactured by: