Flatbed Scanners - Showing 1 - 24 of 2092 Products

What differentiates a flatbed scanner from other types of scanners?

With a flatbed scanner, the document to be scanned is placed on a flat transparent surface and a cover goes covers the document and surface. It is a design similar to what you would find on an enterprise-grade copier. A document scanner operates by being fed a document instead of having it placed on top of a transparent surface. As its name implies, a document scanner can only be used to scan papers and other documents, and cannot be used to scan larger objects such as magazines and books.

There are also specialized scanners that such as a photo scanner, film scanner, business card scanner, and negative scanner. These scanners are designed to be used with specific types of items and a few may use flatbed scanning surfaces.

What can I scan with a flatbed scanner?

One of their main strengths is that unlike document scanners, flatbed scanners can be used to scan objects thicker than a piece of paper. A flatbed scanner can be used to scan a variety of paper media, including business cards, photos, books, magazines, and other objects. So they are great if your staff need to scan pages from a magazine or technical manual without tearing pages out. Another advantage is the ability to scan extremely fragile documents.

What if I need to scan a large number of pages?

Normally with a flatbed scanner, the user must manually place the document onto the scanning surface and close the lid. Some flatbed scanners have automatic document feeders (ADF) that will feed documents from a tray onto the scanning surface, and then eject them onto another tray. Unfortunately automatic document feeders cannot be used with larger objects such as books, magazines, or notepads.