Large Format Scanners: Good For Large Sized Documents

2007-03-08 10:33:40

( Computers )



People who need to scan images that are larger and/or wider than the average short or long bond paper size use large format scanners. Large format scanners also known as wide format scanners, are often used in scanning architectural drawings, engineering drawings, floor plans, reprographics, to duplicate or scan computer aided design work, to aid in the creation of billboards and signs and many more.

Large format scanners come in two types: flatbed scanners and sheetfed scanners. Flatbed scanners, also known as desktop scanners are like copying machines. They are composed of a flat glass plate where different sizes of documents are placed, and scanned. They can also scan x-ray films, slides and transparencies, provided that you obtain a transparency adapter, which is an additional light source to aid in the scanning of dark mediums.

If you need to scan a large number of wide or large sized documents, or documents that are printed on continuous printer paper, then you will need to use a sheetfed scanner. There are two different kinds of sheetfed scanners: there are ones that can scan one piece of paper at a time, and there are those that scan numerous pieces of paper at one time.

Large format scanners come in different specifications. These scanners differ according to its speed, optical resolution, speed, depth in color and dynamic range.

Optical resolution refers to the number of pixels that are obtained by the scanner. The larger the number of pixels it can record, the better the resolution that can be produced. A scanner's color depth refers to how many colors the scanner can record from the document. Dynamic range refers to the scanning density, or how detailed the image will be when scanned. Lastly, speed refers to how fast the scanner can record the images into the system, or how many pages it can scan per minute.

There are other types of scanners that can be found in the market. Some of these include:

Slide scanners, which are only used to scan slides. This scanner requires the light of the scanner to pass through the image of the slide instead of reflecting the light on the document.

Card scanners are small scanners used to scan colored pictures up to a certain size, business cards and ID cards. These scanners are so small and portable, that it can fit into your pocket and can be operated using batteries.

When there is a need to scan the price of a product at the store's cashier counter, so that a sale can be completed, a bar code scanner is used. Handheld bar code scanners are used to record the store's inventory and update the pricing of the products it sells.

A printer scanner fax machine allows you to scan images up to a certain size and print them; consequently, this type of scanner also allows you to send and receive faxes while it is connected to your computer.


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