What a scanner does and what to look for when buying one. It is interesting to note that as scanner prices drop, convenience, ease of use and quality are on the rise. The need to reduce clutter, copy important documents, maintain web pages, scan photos, produce flyers and newsletters is making the scanner as im portant as the keyboard or mouse in getting information into your computer.
Scanners basically fall into two categories, sheet-fed and flatbed.
A sheet-fed scanner grabs the item you scan and moves it across the scanning head, while with a flatbed scanner you lift up a hood similar to a photocopier and place the object flat agai nst a glass plate. A lamp then moves in small increments under the glass while an optical system bounces the light into the scanner's photo sensors building a page one line at a time. In judging which you should choose, bear in mind that although the sheet-fed types take up less space with more than one model incorporating a keyboard and are cheaper, you are bound by those same limitations. The items you scan must be flexible enough t o pass smoothly through the rollers so you are limited in what you may scan. You can scan single pages, not magazine articles or books or thick objects.