Fujitsu fi-7160

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Fujitsu fi-7160	A4	8.27 in x 11.69 in	USB 3.0	60	120	80 sheets	4,000 sheets	Click for more info

Fujitsu fi-7160 is the first scanner for document management we would look at. This A4 scanner weighs 9.2lbs scans 60 sheets per minute with an automatic document feeder (ADF) size of 80 sheets. The ADF size represents the number of sheets that could be placed in the scanner at a time for sequential and automatic scanning relieving the burden of having to place each sheet manually into the scanner.

The recommended daily maximum number of scans (Daily Duty Cycle) by the manufacturer is 4000 sheets a day. Scanning above this recommended number has no significant effect other than the need for frequent replacement of parts known as consumables.

With an optical resolution of 1200dpi, the Fujitsu fi-7160 produces high-quality scans. This is higher than the usual image resolution for document scanners which mostly have a 600 dpi sensor. You won’t need 1200 dpi all the time. For business documents like accounts payable, internal letters, etc. you only need 300 dpi for good OCR results. The scanner as a long document scanning mode of 220in. This mode enables the scanner to render appropriately scans of sheets with A4 width length greater than that of an A4 sheet. The length limit for proper rendering of scans in the long scanning mode of the fi-7160 is 220in.

The connectivity option of this scanner is USB 3.0 which is fitting since it scans 60 pages per minute, so the data transfer can keep up with the data capture. It scans 120 images per minute with a scanning area of 8.27 in x 11.69 in. A feature known as automatic color detection enables the operator to determine how a document is scanned without color presets. Another feature allows it to automatically determine the layout of a document in a situation where sheets are in mixed portrait and landscape formats.

The scanner detects blank pages and marks or deletes them automatically thereby improving productivity. Obtaining copies of different formats from a single scan is made possible by a multistream feature. For example, a colored and a black and white copy can be gotten from a single scan using the multistream feature. Feed rollers should be replaced after scanning 200,000 sheets.

The scanner automatically crops documents to the size of an A4, however, documents with required information outside the size of an A4 should be scanned when the long scanning mode is on. Also included are edge correction and streak correction features.

Background of some scans might not look clean despite appearing clean to the naked eye, however, scanners like Fujitsu fi-7160 with a background cleaning feature optimize scan quality for a clean white background. Scanning documents with punched holes makes punched areas appear black, however, this scanner automatically detects this hole and makes them have the same color as your chosen background. The device scans to PDF, JPEG, TIFF and BMP.

When documents are not inserted appropriately, the scanner can rearrange them and align them correctly. In addition to the automatic feed mode, it also has a manual feed mode. This helps with scanning very thin or very thick documents that the scanner has difficulty scanning automatically.
It can be used to scan barcodes, it has optical character recognition(OCR) and zonal OCR features. The OCR feature enables it to scan documents and then convert them to searchable PDFs which you can then search into using Adobe’s PDF reader Adobe Acrobat or any PDF viewing app. Once the text is recognized from the document, the business applications are endless.

Epson ES-500W

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Epson ES-500W	A4	8.27 in x 11.69 in	SuperSpeed USB 3.0 and WiFi	35	70	50 sheets	4,000 sheets	Click for more info

Next on the list of the best scanners for document management is Epson ES-500W. It weighs 8.1 lbs, like the Fujitsu fi-7160 it is an A4 scanner. With an ADF size of 50 sheets, it scans 35 sheets per minute.
Its optical resolution of 600 dpi provides good scanning resolution. Usage should be maintained within 4000 sheets per day as recommended by the manufacturer, although scanning above this limit only poses the challenge of frequent replacement of consumables.

The Epson ES-500W scanner has a long document scanning mode of 240 in. Super-speed USB 3.0 and WiFi are the connectivity options available to this scanner, which makes it possible to use it with smartphones. Feed rollers should be replaced after scanning 100,000 sheets.

This scanner for document management can handle integration with microsoft sharepoint, evernote, google drive, dropbox and other cloud storage platforms. You can use it with platforms like the Ademero Content Central document management software and the scanning software is compatible with desktop and mobile devices.

It scans 70 images per minute with a scanning area of 8.27 in x 11.69 in. Unlike the Fujitsu, it lacks streaks correction feature. Background of scans are optimized by a background cleaning feature, this maintains the cleanness of documents that would otherwise have appeared dull had this feature been absent.

The punch hole removal feature improves user experience by automatically detecting areas of document in which there are punched holes, rather than making them black as with some other scanners, this feature automatically matches it to the background chosen for the scan.

Edge correction and automatic color detection features are also present. Also present is the multistream feature, which allows for multiple scan copies with different effects (colored or black and white, portrait or landscape) from scanning a document once.

Epson provide TWAIN drivers on their website, so you can use this scanner with custom capture solutions or with a tightly integrated document management solution.
In situations where a single document contains sheets or pages with different orientations, the automatic rotation feature enables the operator to get a single orientation for all of the pages, landscape or portrait.

The scanner recognizes barcodes, the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and the zonal OCR can do a lot for you: You can do selective data extraction like forms automation. You tell it the document types and it will automatically extract data from them. It uses the Nuance OCR software which in our tests proved to bring decent results but below the ones we got from the ABBYY FineReader, especially when it came to layout detection. The Nuance OCR technology can convert the documents to searchable PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, Word Documents or other editable file types. If you only want PDF conversion with OCR, Adobe Acrobat is also a very good option.

The document scanning software bundle in the package includes: Epson Scan 2, Epson ScanSmart Software, Nuance OmniPage Optical Character Recognition (OCR), NewSoft Presto! BizCard. It automatically detects blank pages, marking them or even deleting them. When scanning documents longer than the A4 length, the automatic cropping feature allows it to scan only up to the length of an A4 sheet. When the full content of such a sheet is desired, they should be scanned only after placing the scanner in a long scanning mode.

Deskew feature allows the scanner rearrange and align scattered document appropriately. It has a manual feed mode for scanning very thick or very thin documents. It also has a document separation feature. The Epson Scan software can save documents to JPEG, TIF, Multi-Tiff and Bitmap image files along with electronic documents like PDF. The variety is large enough for it to output something compatible with your favorite paperless office software.

Fujitsu fi-7180

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Fujitsu fi-7180	A4	8.27 in x 11.69 in	USB 3.0	80	160	80 sheets	6,000 sheets	Click for more info

The last scanner for document manangement we will be covering is the Fujitsu fi-7180 scanner. Scanning 80 sheets per minute with an ADF size of 80 sheets, this A4 scanner weighs 19.4 lbs.

Its optical resolution of 1200 dpi same as the Fujitsu fi-7160 provides quality scan resolutions. For digitization of office documents or records scanning we recommend 300-400 dpi as the quality will be good enough and it helps with the file size. Many users don’t take this into account before they scan. The classic mistake is that they scan in high resolution, a 5-page document takes up 50 megabytes then they have problems with file sharing because the size doesn’t allow it to be sent by e-mail. So if you are sharing documents, always go for 300dpi. The same problems can appear when you upload the files to an enterprise content management system. Many of them have size limits on what you can upload.

The manufacturer recommends a daily usage of not more than 4,000 sheet scans, It has a long document scanning mode of 220 inches with USB 3.0 as the only connectivity option available to it. Feed roller should be replaced after scanning 200,000 sheets.
It scans 160 images per minute with a scanning area of 8.27 in x 11.69 in.

It matches the color of areas where holes are punched to that of the chosen background preventing it from appearing black, a feature known as punch hole removal. The scanner detects blank pages (This is a great improvement to document workflows because you don’t have to remove them later), marks or even deletes them thereby improving usability. Automatic rotation enables the scanner to provide a general orientation for documents scanned, this is valuable when scanning documents in which contents have different orientations and only one orientation (portrait or landscape) is desired for all of them.

The Fujitsu fi-7180 has an edge correction feature and a multistream feature. The multistream feature is valuable when scans of different formats are desired from a single scan of a document. For example, by scanning a document once with the multistream feature, you can choose to have four different copies with varying formats such as colored, black and white, portrait or landscape orientation.

The document imaging software bundle includes: PaperStream IP, PaperStream Capture, ScanSnap Manager for fi Series. The PaperStream software can save the digital files in image formats as TIFF Group 4, Multipage TIFF, JPEG, BMP or into digital documents to a PDF file, PDF/A for document archiving or PDF with OCR for document indexing. Having the documents in OCR PDF format is essential in records management and digital asset management because if you manage to digitize everything, not only will you increase efficiency tenfold in the entire management process, but you will also open new possibilities. For example, when you have an audit, searching through physical documents in file cabinets or other document storage units makes it almost impossible to find an connect information in a reasonable amount of time. But when everything from legal documents to technical sheets and basically all paper documents are digital and part of an enterprise content management ECM platform, things that would have taken hours to find, take minutes. All of a sudden you can edit documents more easily, you can add digital signatures, file management becomes easier, version control allows you to know the exact history of a document, the document control flow is much more strongly enforced and managing documents in general becomes easier. That is why the process of scanning is always worth it.

Scanning very thick or very thin documents in automatic mode could cause some errors such as some pages not being scanned, a manual feed mode prevents this problem. Background cleaning feature optimizes the background and makes it appear clean, in scanners that lack this feature, background of documents with the otherwise clean background may appear blur in scans.
The OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and zonal OCR features available to this scanner make contents of the scans obtained from document editable. The scanner can also be used to scan barcodes.

So what is the best scanner for document management systems?

Our favorite is the Fujitsu Fi-7160. It has all the features you need to integrate it with most document management platforms along with it being great value for money and highly reliable.