Multipurpose desktop machines What to look for in a scanner There are two worlds out there on the desktop. The first is the digital world, full of the letters, graphics and spreadsheets that you create on your computer and transmit electronically. Or maybe you'd like to fax a copy of a magazine article to the home office, but your fax-modem will only handle items stored on your computer. With a scanner, the computer world meets the paper world.
Scanners digitize printed images.
That means they turn documents into patterns of digital 1s and 0s that your computer can store, edit and transmit. You can scan a paper invoice and send it to accounts receivable using your fax-modem. You can scan photographs or line art to spice up your presentations, the PTA newsletter or your Web page. If you're befuddled by mounds of paper, you can scan correspondence, reports or even printed forms and convert them into documents you can edit with your word processor or spreadsheet program. You'll pay more for enhanced color capability, resolution and higher speed.