Buying a Production Scanner

Recently I had to buy a scanner for work. I have used a scanner only a few times and my experience has usually been frustrating. And this wasn't your $100 scanner we were looking for, we wanted to buy a production quality scanner.

So, after some research and visiting a few resellers, here is how we arrived at which scanner to buy -

First of all we have to know the important specification of a scanner:

- pages per minute (ppm)
The ppm of a scanner is given at 200 dpi (dots per inches). The ppm will decrease with higher dpi. You should know how many pages you are going to scan every day. I think that unless all you do is scanning, you should be OK with 20 ppm.

- Optical resolution (not digital)
Always look for optical resolution. Digital resolution is Bull. 600 dpi is good. 300 dpi is for losers :)

- Page size it can scan (letter/legal)
Are you always going to scan standard letter size documents (A4)? Most scanners only scan letter size documents. If you want to get really serious and go for legal size (A3), you have to pay more.

- Flatbed or Automatic Documnet Feeder (ADF)
Most scanners come with both, although, I doubt you will much use the flatbed option. That is for scanning pictures, cards, etc.

- Bubdled Software and the software you can use
Perhaps the most important part. From the deomonstration I saw, Kofax capio along with VRS seems the best option. VRS (virtual re-scan) lets you make changes to scanner settings with reference to an already scanned document (you can see the effect of your new setting on the scanned document), and when you re-scan the document, the document is scanned with the changed settings.

So, I will take you through our decision making process with the above parameters and the scanners we evaluated.

PPM: We were not big on PPM. Most scanners are above 15, and that works just fine. Infact, most decent scanners are above or near 20.

DPI: Whether to go for 300 or 600 dpi optical resolution. We saw both, and since we were getting 600 dpi at almost the same price, we went for 600.

Page Size: Legal was a requirement for us and because of this we had to rule out a few scaners. However, we finally decided to go for a heavy duty scanner which could do legal size and another which would only do A4.

Flatbed or automatic feeder: Not much of a problem here. We went for automatic feeder.

We get documents from all over the world, and one of the biggest requirement was that we should be able to change the settings of the scanner easily. For example, we get a lot of water-marked documents and most scanners will have the watermark very prominent. We wanted to be able to change the settings (make it bright), to get rid of the watermark. And some of the scanners we evaluated would not get rid of the watermark even if we changed the setting.

Purchased:

Fujitsu fi 5530C (Price range $2500+)
This scanner is rated as: 35ppm, 100 page ADF/ Duplex VRS/ 11.7" x 17" paper size (max). I was very impressed by this scanner. It is the smallest scanner at this price tag, can handle legal paper size and the scanning quality was tremendous. Of course, I will let you know more when I use it. This scanner does not come with Kofax Capio (almost $300), so you may have buy a license.

Bowe Bell &Howell Sidekick 1200 (Price range $850+)
23ppm/120 page ADF/ Duplex VRS / Capio/ 600 dpi optical/ 8.5" x 14" paper size
Looked good all around. Comes with Capio so you save $300 right away. The biggest drawback is it can only do A4 size paper. We bought this as a backup scanner.

Others Evaluated:
Kodak i150/i160 ($2500+)
Optical 300 dpi/40 ppm/ 11.7" x 17" /
It can handle legal paper size but the optical resolution is 300 dpi. Also, it looks really big.

Fun fact: I wanted to evaluate some HP scanner. However, they did not have any reseller in our city. And they were not willing to help. "Well, it is an HP scanner, you will not have any problem". This is what they told me. Sure, I may not have any problem but will it meet my needs? I wasn't going to put $5000 of our money for something we will eventually return.

Note: You should also look at what after-sale service you get. We got a good deal and this did not affect after decision making process.

Quotes

Here are a bunch of quotes collected over time:

"In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. But in practice there is."

How come every time you go to the emergency room they got doctors from India there? I don't want to put my life in the hands of a doctor who believes in reincarnation. Give me a good old-fashioned American doctor who'll make sure I live to pay the bill.


When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President.
Now I'm beginning to believe it.
-- Clarence Darrow

Vincent: For someone who was never meant for this world, I must admit I am having a hard time leaving it. Although they say every atom in our bodies was once part of a star. Maybe I'm not leaving... maybe I'm going home.

From the movie 'Gattaca'

It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is.
If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't
our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.
-- Oxford University Press, "Edpress News"


Dorothy Parker quipped, “If all the sweet young things in this room were laid end to end... I wouldn’t be the least surprised.”


He hadn't a single redeeming vice.
-- Oscar Wilde

'Twas the Night before Crisis

Rules of Optimization:
Rule 1: Don't do it.
Rule 2 (for experts only): Don't do it yet.
- M.A. Jackson
"The best is the enemy of the good."
- Voltaire

Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today --
I think he's from the CIA.


Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief.
-Rumi


Seduced, shaggy Samson snored.
She scissored short. Sorely shorn,
Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed,
Silently scheming,
Sightlessly seeking
Some savage, spectacular suicide.
-- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
Necessity is a mother.

If you can't be good, be careful.
If you can't be careful, give me a call.

It is a great nuisance that knowledge can only be acquired by hard work.
--W. Somerset Maugham

Fiction has to be believable, but in reality, anything can happen.
-Michael O'Brien


We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.
-- Niels Bohr

Dodger’s manager Tommy Lasorda was once asked, "Did you ever think in your wildest dreams that you’d be in the World Series?" and replied "My wildest dreams have nothing to do with baseball."

"What George Washington did for us was to throw out the British, so that we wouldn't have a fat, insensitive government running our country. Nice try anyway, George."
-- D.J. on KSFO/KYA

There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.
-- Woody Allen

If you don't know where you are going, you will end up somewhere else.
-- Yogi Berra


Meditate.
Live purely. Be quiet.
Do your work with mastery.
Like the moon, come out
from behind the clouds!
Shine

Buddha
"The Enlightened One"


Someday is today.


Mark Twain:
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.


"Don't ever let the facts get in the way of a good story."


"... After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known
quotations."
-- H. L. Mencken, on Shakespeare

I am back

After a year long hiatus, I am back. I am hoping this will last.

I was in India for almost 6 months. There was a VISA problem, and I had to take a forced sabbatical. I will blog about the whole VISA issue.

So, since I plan to blog regularly, what should I write about. I read somewhere that the best writing is when you choose a listener and just write for him. I think the best writing is when the listener is you. Yes, you write selfish. You write for yourself. It probably is the most satisfying kind of writing too.

So, I will write, and write for myself. But feel free to add your comments.