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Hardware
The reality of today’s information documents is that most of them start out in an electronic
format and then are printed. Other than documents that have signatures on them, most are
created within spreadsheets, e-mail, word processing, or database applications. The best
approach is to try to maintain the electronic format for as long as possible, if not 100 percent
of the time. For paper that needs to jump out of the electronic format for a bit, you should
aim to get it back into the digital world quickly. The first thing everyone needs is a good
scanner. You can buy standalone models, or you can get a printer with built-in scanning
capabilities (leverage a printer and photocopier for when your organization has to deal with
less enlightened clients and vendors).
You want to keep an eye on the device’s scanning page rate and whether it can scan
both sides of the page (called duplex). You also should consider scanners that include copies
of Adobe Acrobat Standard or another PDF creator.

NOTE Adobe Acrobat Standard is software that allows you to create Portable Document Format
(PDF) files. We’ll talk more about PDFs and why you should embrace the format later in this
section.

Of course, which feature and model are best for your organization is a matter of your
organization’s requirements and your budget. Table 6-1 compares some popular scanner PART III
models, though the list is far from comprehensive.

NOTE Although we’re not endorsing any particular brand or model of scanner, try and stick with a
name you know. The Soduki 5000 may cost just US$49, but there’s probably a reason for that.
Everyone will appreciate something speedy and functional that performs reliably.

Color Scanner
Scanner Price Resolution Depth Type Comments
Xerox DocuMate $799 600×1200 dpi 48 bit Fast duplex Scans 50 images
252 XDM2525D-WU sheet-fed per minute.
Includes one-
touch scanning.
Fujitsu fi-5120C $899 600×600 dpi 24 bit Duplex High reliability.
PA03484-B005
Xerox DocuMate $289 600×1200 dpi 42 bit Fast Converts scans to
510 XDM5105D-WU single-pass PDF at 10 pages
per minute.
Holds 50 pages in
document feeder.
HP Scanjet 8300 $449 4800 dpi 48 bit Flatbed Optional 100-
L1960AB1H sheet document
holder.

TABLE 6-1 Comparison of Some Scanner Models and Their Features