A document scanner is a device that allows you to convert a written or printed document into digital form. Every type of document scanner will be able to digitize photos or documents at the every least, although there are certain more specialized units on the market. There are even document scanners that are intended primarily for business cards.
An important factor to take into consideration when shopping for a document scanner is its image resolution, A document scanner that offers a resolution of 600dpi or less should be adequate for basic document and image filing. For most uses that dont require too much detail, this resolution is generally more than enough. For more demanding applications however, you may want to look into a higher resolution document scanner.
If you are planning to scan photographs as well as documents, you may want to look into a flatbed document scanner. There are many different models of such scanners, and they can differ considerably with regard to design and functionality. If you want to be able to scan photographs accurately, you will want to go for a document scanner that offers 24 bit sampling capability.
If you require greater detail from your scanned images, you will have to go for a document scanner that is intended specifically for photographs. Many of these scanners come with advanced and highly specialized features, and will allow you to scan negatives as well as larger prints. In fact, many manufacturers routinely bundle a fairly respectable set of image editing software tools with these types of scanners.
If you want to be able to work with the text from the documents that you scan, you will want to look for a document scanner with OCR or Optical Character Recognition capability. These types of scanners use special software that can read a page of text and convert it into a document that you can open in your word processing software. This essentially allows you to modify what was originally a scanned image just as you would any other word processor file. Although the early version of OCR were riddled with errors, the technology is now capable of pretty impressive results. You may still run into some garbled or misspelled text here and there however, although there shouldnt be too much editing involved on your part.
Todays new breed of document scanner is quite sporty and stylish, and they dont take up much desk space at all. If you remember the big bulky document scanner of years past, you will greatly appreciate the convenience and the greatly reduced footprint that a modern document scanner comes with.

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