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In the first article in this two-part series, we talked about why you might want a scanner and what scanner specifications might be important to understand before making a scanner purchase. In this article, we'll talk about software considerations and look at the various scanner technologies to choose from. By the time you have read both articles you will be armed with the information you need to choose the best scanner for your agency.
Look At the Software Too
How many times have you been told to choose the software you want, then choose the hardware necessary to run it? That's a generally accepted way of selecting the right application system.
While it would be nice to do that with scanners, that isn't completely possible. With the exception that many sheet-fed and flatbed scanners can emulate the Hewlett Packard ScanJet or ScanJet Plus scanners, making them compatible with a lot of graphics software, most scanners have proprietary hardware interfaces and corresponding software.
Fortunately there is a relatively new standard for a software interface to scanners called TWAIN. Many newer scanners come with a TWAIN scanner driver. TWAIN runs on Windows machines, but not under DOS, and provides a consistent way to bring scanned images into many software packages. As a result, more and more software packages support TWAIN as a source for graphics, eliminating the issue of whether your software supports the particular scanner you are thinking of purchasing. I would recommend you not purchase a scanner that doesn't have TWAIN support.
For scanners without TWAIN support, it is important when evaluating them to look not only at the hardware specifications for the scanner, but to look at, and hopefully try, the software that comes with that scanner. For many scanners, the bundled software is the only software you can use with that scanner.
For instance, one of the first scanners I owned, the Plustek ScanPlus, comes with a scanning program SCAN-G that only saves in TIFF format and has extremely limited editing capabilities. If it weren't HP ScanJet Plus compatible, I wouldn't recommend it as a scanner because of the limits, and possible bugs, in its scanning software.
Also look at what formats your scanning software can save your images in. The common...