Xerox 4700

Product	Format	Optical Resolution	Connectivity	Color Depth	Price
Xerox 4700	A3	600 dpi	Hi-Speed USB 2.0 (USB 1.1 compatible)	24-bit Color and 8-bit Grayscale	Click for more info

The Xerox 4700 is our favorite 11 x 17 Flatbed scanner because it is a great balance between decent specs and price. First of all it is worth mentioning that the Xerox 4700 is one of the fastest flatbed scanners ever made with fast scanning speeds of 2.5 seconds per document at 300 dpi. The scanning time is one of its main strong points. In theory you could achieve a 10 ppm color speed if you move the papers fast enough. The optical resolution is just 600 dpi and that would be its weak point. It was designed more for documents than it was for photos. The image resolution is provided by a CIS (Contact Image Sensor). With a daily duty cycle of 10,000 sheets every day, you can scan non-stop on this document scanning device and it will not break making it the ideal scanner for busy companies.

Since paper size is the big issue here, let me reiterate that the following formats can be scanned on this device: 11 x 17 (obviously), 8,5 x 14, 11 x 14, 8.5 x 14, 9 x 12. For 12 x 12 and 12 x 18 and 12 x 17 you should be aware that it will cut out about one inch. If you need to scan something bigger like 14 x 17 or 16 x 20 you should be aware that you need a much bigger flatbed scanner.

This A3 flatbed scanner has an optical resolution of 600 dpi and it is a USB scanners so it can connect to your Windows or Mac through a HiSpeed USB 2.0 port. It can also connect to a Xerox Documate scanner with an automatic document feeder adf tray through USB and you can use the two as one scanner. Both will scan directly to the same folder in the order in which you scanned the documents. That is a very useful feature for digitization projects where almost always, you have to keep the right order of the documents.

It has no less than 9 buttons on the front that are fully customizable. Defaults are for PDF, OCR and Scan to e-mail

The scanner comes with some scanning apps: Visioneer Acuity with DriverPLUS, Visioneer OneTouch, ABBYY FineReader Sprint. The ABBYY software will help you convert Bitmap, JPEG and TIFF files to searchable PDFs, Word Doc, Excel XLS, TXT, RTF, etc. The text recognition accuracy of the ABBYY software proved to be the best one in our tests, in comparison to the Nuance and ReadIris and we use it all the time with our book scanners, Plustek opticbook and Plustek opticpro models. If you scan documents with text containing latin characters printed by laser printers or inkjet printers, text recognition accuracy should be above 99%.

Epson DS-50000

Product	Format	Optical Resolution	Connectivity	Color Depth	Price
Epson DS-50000	A3	600 dpi	USB 2.0 Type B, Wired Network (optional)	16-bit Color and 8-bit Grayscale	Click for more info

The DS-50000 is another great 11 x 17 flatbed scanner. It also has an image resolution of 600 dots per inch but this time it is provided by a 4-line CCD (Charge-Coupled Device) sensor. The sensor will bring out sharper images and more vivid RGB colors than the Xerox. It is a scanner with a higher image quality. Even if the 600 dpi optical resolution is the same, not all image sensors are created equal, so two scanners may have the same number of pixels per inch but create completely different digital copies. It is not as fast as the Xerox, but it was made for productivity. It is guaranteed to scan about 300,000 scans until it will stop functioning. You can connect your DS-50000 to your computer through the USB 2.0 port but you can also buy an additional network module so that you can plug an ethernet cable into it.

The document imaging software included with this 11×17 scanner is ABBYY FineReader Sprint 8.0, ABBYY FineReader Sprint 9.0 (A solid Optical Character Recognition choice), Epson Document Capture Pro, Epson Document Capture Pro Server, Epson Event Manager, Epson Scan. You can tell it was built for productivity because the Document Capture Pro software is especially good with documents. It offers features like document workflows (very basic, not a document management solution), automatic cropping, deskew and other enhancements for scanned images. The software is compatible with both major operating systems, Windows 10 and Mac OS X.

The problem with this Epson scanner is the price. It costs 2-3 times more than the Xerox and spec-wise it is not worth it as it is above the average price of 11×17 flatbed scanners without offering superior specs. The reason why it would be worth it is because this scanner has proven to be more reliable in time and that is why customer ratings are sky-high with this 11 x 17 flatbed scanner compared to the Xerox.

Epson also makes the workforce ds-60000 and workforce ds-70000. The DS-60000 is an 11×17 adf flatbed scanner and the DS-70000 is also a duplex combo scanner. They have the best of both worlds, a unit for flatbed scanning of fragile and high-quality documents and a color duplex document scanner tray for maximum scan speed of 40 pages per minute and 70 respectively. Both of those models can be converted to network scanners if you buy the optional ethernet package. All three of these models are compatible wind Mac and Pc devices.

If you don’t need a 11×17 scanner with a large scanning size, our recommendation is that you go for the Epson perfection V600 color photo image film negative scanner if you need more advanced scanner features and are interested in obtaining quality scans. It quickly scans documents but it is not wide format. Go for the Perfection V19 and Perfection V39 if you need just a basic scanner in the low price range. Not that the last two scanners are not slide scanners, they are only scanners for scanning documents and photos so you won’t have that functionality.

A similar product line of office document scanners with ADF duplex scanning and flatbed scanning is provided by HP with the hp scanjet pro series scanners and ScanJet Enterprise line which we found much easier to operate because of the integrated touch screens.

Epson Expression 12000XL-GA

Product	Format	Optical Resolution	Connectivity	Color Depth	Price
Epson Expression 12000XL-GA	A3	2400 dpi	Hi-Speed USB 2.0	48-bit Color or 16-bit Grayscale	Click for more info

The Epson Expression 12000XL-GA is an 11 x 17 flatbed scanner powerhouse. This was not made for documents, it was made for high-quality photography. It has a 2400 DPI resolution (Optical, no interpolation) CCD sensor with a 3.8 Dmax, backed by an efficient ReadyScan LED lamp light source. That means the digital images will have deeper blacks than you would get from the same photo on another cheaper scanner. It has the same basic USB 2.0 connectivity and Epson provides TWAIN drivers for download on their website.

This flatbed scanner also supports film scanning and the pixel density allows for it. You can put 35mm strips and slides, medium format and 4 inch by 5 inch film. In a single batch you can scan either eight 4 x 5 inch frames, 30 slides or 48 frames of 35mm film. All and all it is quite a productive film scanner. The software can use the Digital ICE features for removing scratches and dust marks from the film and the SilverFast AI will improve them a lot.

You also get some calibration targets for correcting the color accuracy of the photo scanner through RGB color profiles. This is not to improve vividness, but just provide more accurate colors. The software consists of: Epson Scan with Epson Easy Photo Fix Technology, LaserSoft Imaging SilverFast Ai, IT8 Target. You can fix up your color photos with the Easy Photo Fix with one-touch or with the Silverfast AI software that requires more manual adjustments but has advanced technology features like Auto IT8 Calibration, Frame detection for film, Selective Color Correction, NegaFix for an accurate negative to positive conversion, Color Restoration and descreening for that annoying Moire effect and advanced color to grayscale conversion.

Much of the technology in this A3 format scanner is also found on the epson perfection V850 Pro and the perfection v800, but they are A4 scanners so any document size of 8.5 x 14,0, 8.5 x 14, 12 x 12, 14 x 17 will not fit on the scanning glass.

You can sync the software with your Google Drive, Dropbox or Evernote account but at the digital file sizes this scanner will be generating at full resolution, you will be running out of space very soon.

What is the best 11 x 17 flatbed scanner for me?

If you are looking for 11×17 scanners for this scan size, even though the buying options are certainly more limited than with A4 flatbed scanners, there are devices for every budget and specs level. If you want to use your flatbed image scanner as a complementary device to production scanners in your large format scanning project then either the Xerox 4700 or the Epson DS-50000. If you are a photographer or a professional and quality is your main concern, then the Epson Expression 12000XL-GA is the one for you. The two Canon Canoscan Lide models that Canon makes were not included in the list as they can only scan a document size of up to A4. Neither is the Plustek A3 flatbed scanner which is somewhere in the Xerox 4700 range of features and price. Decided you want a portable scanner? Along with 11×17 flatbeds, we also reviewed all the portable document scanners that you can buy on the market. Some of our best picks for that include fujitsu scansnap s1300i, fujitsu scansnap ix100, brother ads-1700w and workforce es-300w mobile scanner. We also reviewed more than 100 desktop scanners including the Epson Workforce es-400 ADF scanner, Visioneer patriot h60 sheetfed scanner, canon imageformula r40, fujitsu scansnap ix1500.