Bulk Document Scanning

Doublespresso

I'm looking to scan lots of documents/papers over a period of time and was wondering if there is a cheap but sturdy scanner that can do this with a sheet feeder for bulk scanning.
The quality in terms of dpi is less important as it's mostly for printed papers however, reasonable speed is essential.

Any help would be appreciated

Doublespresso

...anyone at all??

MercilessKiller

How about a young assistant :P only £4.50 an hour! lol

superscaper

TBH I've looked myself only a few weeks ago and one of the most suitable things I could find was the fujitsu scansnap series but they're way out of my price range. Otherwise for domestic scanners there don't seem to be that many with automatic document feeders. I even tried looking for an ADF for my existing scanner but that's out of production and noone has any in stock any more. So basically I'm currently concentrating on other things until I get around to it again.

Edit: I was actually hoping to glean some useful info from this thread myself.

MercilessKiller

If its a once only job why not hire someone to do it for you? A little notice in your local newsagent window "£5 an hour to do some scanning. Cash in hand"

"1 hour only" ;p lol

superscaper

MercilessKiller wrote: »

If its a once only job why not hire someone to do it for you? A little notice in your local newsagent window "£5 an hour to do some scanning. Cash in hand"

"1 hour only" ;p lol

For me personally it would be a continuous thing over time and one of my main concerns would be quite a few documents I wouldn't want other people to see (client trade secrets etc).

MercilessKiller

Haha I was meaning it could be weekend work for a 14 year old You could always get them to sign a data protection document :P haha

eryn_kathleen

I might be able to help with this - I do a lot of scanning for academic work.

I recently placed an add on Gumtree and found someone who would do scanning for a very low per-page fee, but from your above post that's not what you're looking for.

I've found HP Officejet All-in-Ones to be quite good, and I recently upgraded to one with a document feeder for £100 at Costco. It's a printer/copier/scanner/fax, although I don't use the fax. I've got the 6310 model and I'm quite pleased with it. Lexmark or Brother (can't remember which) do a similar model for less, but I went with HP because I had used them before and know their interface.

You'll find that the scanning will start off fairly slowly because you'll need to get all the settings right and check the output for each batch (for example, I usually run 3-5 pages and if they look alright I run the next 30). Most of the small office/domestic machines will take less than 50 sheets at a time, which for me isn't a problem but you might be looking for higher inputs.

My biggest suggestion, though, is to set the scanner up in your living room at home and doing while watching telly. It's a really boring and time-consuming job, even with a document feeder, but you'll have to keep an eye on it so I find that I don't ever get anything else done if I try to multitask.

Here are some examples over a fairly wide price range. Is there something specific you're looking for?

Viking (£100-£200)
http://www.viking-direct.co.uk/catalog/catalogSku.do;jsessionid=0000DZDlN9gfOPGhwp6mHcuiZ-2:11g06dj48?id=C6180&pr=Q26&N=2%20464
http://www.viking-direct.co.uk/catalog/catalogSku.do;jsessionid=0000DZDlN9gfOPGhwp6mHcuiZ-2:11g06dj48?id=MFC5460CN&pr=Q26&N=2%20464
http://www.viking-direct.co.uk/catalog/catalogSku.do;jsessionid=0000DZDlN9gfOPGhwp6mHcuiZ-2:11g06dj48?id=MFC540CN&pr=Q26&N=2%20464

Dabs (£40 and up)
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?quicklinx=48H4&CategorySelectedId=11113&NavigationKey=11113,43030000&InMerch=1
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?quicklinx=3SBD&CategorySelectedId=11113&NavigationKey=11113,43030000&InMerch=1
http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=3M4T&CategorySelectedId=11113&NavigationKey=11113,43030000&InMerch=1

Dabs has loads more - I just plucked out the first three.

PistonBroke_2

Do you want this to scan to File or to Email ? if it's for email then i use HP 9100 Digital Senders within my Company there not cheap @ £2.5k but have been invaluable in saving my company time & Effort

bob_a_builder

Heres a LINK for the Fujitsu ScanSnap

It creates PDF's directly, its quick 18 pages a minute, and scans both sides a the same time

Also whats good about it, is it will auto rotate the images based on content - so you don't have to sort the documents too much

Also the PDF's it makes are text searchable (not handwritten stuff), no point in scanning it all it you can't find & get the info back again quickly

Defo cheaper than a HP digital sender ...