[WEB4LIB] scanner

[Bob Rasmussen]

On Wed, 2 Jun 1999, Isabel Danforth wrote:

> Our library is looking for a scanner.  We want to use it to produce images
> for our news letter, and to be able to scan photos and kids artwork to put
> on the web page.
> 
> Can anyone suggest a reasonable priced one?  What features do you think are
> needed - worth having.

I've bought several scanners, and they all work pretty well. They are getting
to be a commodity product - many under $100. Variables:

1. Resolution: be sure to compare optical resolution, not "interpolated" or
whatever they call it.

2. Flatbed or sheet feed. If you want to scan a book page, you'll need
flatbed.

3. Drivers. Unfortunately, this is hard to compare until you own it. Make sure
at least that it has a TWAIN driver, so that various software can access it.

4. Color purity.

5. Interface. See below.

> 
> Is a USB the way to go?

I am coming to really like USB. Of course it's supported only on Win95B,
Win98, and I'm not sure about NT. You can hot-plug it, which means you can
bring a scanner out from storage, plug it in to a PC which has the drivers
installed, and you can run. It can even get its power from USB port, so
there's not separate power block.

Other interfaces are parallel, SCSI, or proprietary cards, all of which have
downsides.

As an aside, let me describe my scanner setup. I have a PageScan USB scanner
from Storm. This is a small, sheet-feed scanner. I have it sitting ON TOP of
my 17" monitor. I didn't like the software that came with it (couldn't even
change scan resolution), so I bought Paperport Deluxe, from Visioneer. With it
I can scan, fax, print, store, group, organize, convert to text, and feed to
other applications various documents. I can also scan a form, fill it in on
screen, and print it out. It is very well done. I'm trying to move to less
paper handling, and this seems to be a good start.

Regards,
....Bob Rasmussen,   President,   Rasmussen Software, Inc.

personal e-mail: ras at anzio.com
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