Do you want to have a paperless office? Do you want to make your search for specific documents every day easier? Or do you want to simply reduce the paper clutter in your home or office? Look no further, a document scanner might just do the job.
Document scanners are mainly used for:
- Scanning letter and legal sized papers mainly of texts
- Business or academic documents on a regular basis
- Personal documents like bills, receipts, medical records, tax records etc
If you are planning to buy a document scanners, please just don’t buy a random one but consider these factors and you will know what you want exactly. After all, we are constantly looking to make the most out of everything; you could buy the best scanner for your need too. Now, I will not bore you with all the technical specs and will try to be brief as much as possible.
So…What are the features to look for in a document scanner?
- Resolution
For a document scanners, 300 dpi should be enough. Although 600 dpi is most common these days. Anything above that will increase the file size without any added benefit.
- Scanning Speed
Scanning speed is measured in papers per minute (ppm) or images per minute (ipm). It may vary according to the resolution you choose to scan. Obviously, higher the scanning speed, better the scanner is.
- Automatic Document Feeder
Almost all of the document scanners come with an ADF today. So you should look for the capacity and efficiency of ADF in a scanner. A good ADF will not jam, stick or pull paper in crooked.
- Duty Cycle
Duty Cycle is the manufacturer’s rating for how many pages per day a scanner can scan without any problem. For home or small business, 500 pages per day will be enough but hey! It’s your call.
- Single Pass Duplex Scanning
It means that the scanner can scan two sides at once. A lot of scanners have this feature and is less time consuming but maybe little expensive. Consider this feature for large volume scanning or consider ADF with manual duplexing.
- Connectivity
Is wireless option a must now? I think so. Most of the scanners here feature WiFi and USB 3.0 for a fast connection.
- Bundled Software
A good scanner should possess excellent software for character recognition, editing, and organizing.
- Compatibility
Check if the scanner is compatible with your device before you buy.
- Warranty
All electronic products are prone to damage and need a warranty. Minimum one year is must for a scanner.
Here is our list of best document scanners from a cluster of thousands, handpicked by experts.
The newer products are listed below and the discontinued products are marked as such.
Fujitsu Scansnap iX1600 – The Best Document Scanner for Office and Home – **New**
This is a simply magnificent desktop scanner which replaced the iX1500 model of 2018. The previous top pick iX1500 is followed by the latest iX1600 with its award-winning performance. Due to its excellent software and ease of use, it has retained the number one position till now. This scanner is most suitable for small offices and homes. As the predecessor, this scanner also has small dimensions and space saving design which helps to fit into small desks. This has 50 sheet ADF (automatic document feeder) and 6000 scans duty cycle. The scanner can work at 40 PPM speed. The built-in OCR present can scan to text or editable PDF with excellent accuracy. It has large control panel with good interface and an excellent software. The connectivity to the scanner includes USB and wireless connection by connecting to Wi-Fi. The main attraction of this document scanner is the user-friendly app which works on all smartphones and tablets.
PROS:
- Comprehensive Scansnap software
- Easy to install and use
- Accurate OCR and perfect scanning
CONS:
- NIL
HP Scanjet Pro 2000 S2 **New**
This is a great product from HP which scans at a rate of 35 PPM and 600 PPI resolution. It also has duplex scanning technique with which you can scan both side of the pages simultaneously. Its modern design is perfect for all desktops and can fit into any space since it is small and thin. With the built-in OCR feature you can edit the scanned files, search for text, convert to searchable PDF files and more. It can scan up to 3500 pages per day and has 50 sheets automatic feeding capacity. The quality and speed of scanning is excellent. The USB 3.0 connectivity present in the scanner is very fast and reliable.
You can setup this scanner easily and its software can be effortlessly installed. But the only drawback of the scanner is the not so user-friendly software.
PROS:
- Small and Space saving design
- High quality and Speedy scans
- Inbuilt OCR for easy editing
- Suitable for scanning bulky documents
CONS:
- Software is not user-friendly
HP ScanJet Pro 3000 S2 – Discontinued | Newer Model is HP ScanJet Pro 3000 S4
The successor to the well known HP ScanJet 3000 Pro, the 3000 Pro S2 has seen some major improvements in software and hardware. It measures only 6.5 by 11.2 by 6.3 inches which fit any desk.
With an Automatic Document Feeder of 50 sheets capacity and scanning speed of 20 papers per minute at 600 ppi resolution, this elegant looking scanner could easily be your favorite personal desktop scanner.
HP’s Easy Scan utility is one of the most user-friendly scanning software out there. Other software includes ReadIris Pro 14 for optical character recognition, Nuance PaperPort 14 for documents management and CardIris Pro 5 for reading business cards. You can scan to different formats using the HP Easy Scan Utility. It supports TWAIN and WIA drivers for easy scanning.
One major drawback I found was the text recognition speed. It is much slower than the other models listed here. But nevertheless, the scan quality is excellent.
Overall, HP ScanJet Pro 3000 S2 is worth considering as a personal desktop scanner.
Brother Image Center ADS-1000W
ADS-1000W is an unusual but amazingly compact desktop scanner for daily use. It is fast, affordable and user-friendly too! Believe me, it takes up only a small fraction of your desk space.
It comes with a 20 sheet ADF, WiFi and USB connections and duplex scanning. At 600 ppi resolution, it can scan up to 16 papers per minute.
The ADS-1000W can scan to mobile, FTP and cloud services but requires WiFi. Since it does not offer WiFi direct, you will need a computer to do so. The scanner supports TWAIN and WIA drivers for Windows users and features Nuance Paperport 12 SE software for easy document management. It also has Presto! Bizcard for scanning business cards. For scanning and managing receipts, you need to download BR-Receipts program from Brother’s website.
Well, speaking of performance, I must say ADS-1000W is not up to the mark. It was comparatively slower than Epson Workforce DS 510 and Fujitsu ix500. Scan to searchable PDF took more than 2 minutes to complete. Also, the business card reader was not accurate as I expected. But the OCR performed excellent reading up to 6 points Ariel without mistake.
If you are looking for an extremely compact, yet not a portable scanner for your office, ADS-1000W may be a perfect choice.
Epson WorkForce DS-860 – Discontinued | Newer Model is DS-870
The DS-860 is a high-end document scanner most suitable for large work-group or high volume scanning. This high-speed sheet-fed scanner can scan up to 65 paper per minute i.e 130 ipm at 600 ppi resolution. It also features an ADF of 80 sheet capacity. Epson boasts 6000 sheets daily duty cycle and excellent text recognition capability.
Setting up this beast is pretty standard and easy. It comes with TWAIN, WIA and ISIS drivers for windows users. DS-860 features Document Capture Pro for document management and Abbyy FineReader Lite version for reading the text. It can read text up to 6 points without a single mistake.
Epson Workforce DS-860 is ultra fast with no lag between command and action. Scan to searchable PDF is also faster than any other scanners. It only took 1 minute and 12 secs to scan to searchable PDF.
If you are looking for a heavy duty document scanner, look no further, you’ve found it.
Epson WorkForce DS-510 Color Document Scanner
Despite the size, this compact document scanner can scan even A3 size pages. You just need to fold and scan the large documents and the inbuilt software re-create the original. With duplex scan support, you can scan up to 51 pages per minute and the 50-sheet automatic document feeder does an excellent job. It can also scan plastic ID cards up to 8.5×3.6 inches.
The DS 510 can be used by both Mac, Windows users and it supports TWAIN and ISIS drivers for direct scanning. A first time user may take some time to get used to the Epson scanning software. The Document Capture Pro software scans to editable PDF or other user-specified formats. Epson also included Abbyy FineReader Sprint for OCR and Presto! Bizcard to collect information from business cards.
The DS 510 can scan to FTP, Web or SharePoint servers. Also, it scans to the cloud, Google Drive, Evernote, and SugarSync. Another useful feature of DS 510 is that you can save specific scan settings and assign to a button. This saves a lot of time actually. For an additional amount, you can install network interface so that multiple users can access the scanner. However, this costs too much and it is better to buy a scanner with network interface if you are looking for that.
Overall, Epson DS 510 is perfect for small to medium-sized office at an affordable price.
Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 – Discontinued
I must say I have never seen a product with a 5-star rating from 2000+ customers on Amazon. And that’s Fujitsu ix500. Once I used the product, I realized the rating was no surprise. The successor to the Fujitsu s1500, the ix500 has seen many enhancements. It is compact (fits on any desk), faster, is wireless, supports USB 3.0 and can scan directly to mobile devices or cloud via the app.
The scanner features a built-in dual-core CPU which makes it a standalone WiFi scanner. Which means you can scan wirelessly to any device without the aid of a computer. It supports color duplex scanning and has Automatic Document Feeder of 50 sheets capacity.
Fujitsu ix500 is one of the faster scanners out there which can scan up to 25 papers per minute. There are 4 modes of scanning. The normal mode which scans at 150 dpi color and grey scale and 300 dpi monochrome, the Better mode which scans at 200 dpi and 400 dpi respectively, the Best mode at 300 and 600 and the Automatic mode detects the document and assign proper settings automatically. You get the same speed of scanning for all modes. Another awesome improvisation is the new and accurate paper feeder. With this, you will not misfeed a single document.
Fujitsu ix500 can be used with both Windows and Mac. Although it lacks TWAIN driver, but uses a whole new approach to scanning i.e, unlike other scanners, here, you scan a document and choose which program to open it with. You can add up to 10 programs for this. Well, not everyone gets this at the first time but you will get used to it.
The quick menu is very easy and user-friendly. Fujitsu bundles Abbyy FineReader as OCR and CardMinder to scan business cards. The OCR gives a good performance which recognized up to 6 points Times New Roman without any errors. The notable feature was that it scans to searchable PDF faster than any other scanner in its class.
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