The Fujitsu Fi 7600 scanner we review today, is one of the most important products out of the Fi Series.
The manufacturer markets this scanning equipment as a low-volume production scanner. This means you can use it for small to high volume batch scans. It really is a flexible product.
We will try and focus on the software it uses, driver compatibility and also other technical specs that will help you use this scanner successfully.
The scanner datasheet
Fujitsu proposes some interesting specifications and features with this scanner. In the following table, you can see some of the most interesting.
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| Scanning Area | 304.8 mm x 431.8 mm (12 in. x 17 in.) when scanning in standard mode 304.8 mm x 5,588 mm document length (12 in. x 220 in. ) when scanning in the long paper mode for wide format documents |
| Camera sensor | CCD sensor for the front camera CCD sensor for the rear camera |
| Lighting system | Double LED for each camera |
| Optical Resolution | 50 to 600dpi from software, and 1200dpi from the driver if needed |
| Scanning Speed at 300dpi Color | A4 Landscape – 100ppm in simplex mode / 200ipm in duplex mode A4 Portrait – 80ppm in simplex mode / 160ipm in duplex mode |
| ADF Capacity | 300 sheets of 80gsm for the automatic document feeder |
| Daily Duty Cycle | 30000 A4 sheets / Day |
| Multifeed Detection | Ultrasonic Sensor for instant Double Feed Detection |
| Connectivity | USB 3.1 for High Speed Transfer |
| Consumables | Roller Kit Contains 2x Brake Roller 2x Feed Roller |
To get more information about the specifications of this scanner, follow this link to download the official FI 7600 Brochure.
Explaining the Fujitsu FI-7600 specs
We will take the most interesting specs of this scanner and break it down for you.
Scanning Area
The FI-7600 is an A3 scanner. An interesting fact about the scanning area is that the actual scanning size is a bit wider than your standard A3. At 304.8mm in width, it allows you to also scan documents that are just a bit wider than a normal A3.
The scanning length can be set to A3, 420mm to be more precise. If you enable the long document scanning mode, you can go up to 5588mm or 220 inches. So the document size varies quite a lot.
It depends on what kind of documents you are scanning. When you have a mixed batch, but you know that the size of the documents is not larger than A4, you can select the A4 size and Auto Crop Feature. This way, the driver will automatically crop each document to its original size.
Scanning speed
With a maximum scanning speed of 100ppm at 300dpi in color, this scanner is fast enough for low volume production. What we can recommend is to scan in landscape only when you have standard documents.
If you want to scan mixed documents, we would recommend scanning in portrait. Yes, it is a bit slower, but it will feed documents more reliably. It’s also easier to prepare documents in portrait mode than in landscape mode when you have a mix of larger and small sheets.
We recommend you take advantage of the independent side guides, especially when feeding mixed documents. You can easily align them to suit your requirements, making it easier to sort and prepare documents for scanning. This will improve feed performance, even in tougher scanning jobs.
ADF Capacity
The paper chute has a capacity of 300 pages. This scanner provides an increase of 100 pages over the model it replaces, the Fujitsu Fi 6670.
When compared to other document scanners, the volume might seem small. There are scanners with a comparable price that have a paper chute of 500 sheets.
The Fujitsu has one trick though. It offers the scanning operator to load documents into the ADF while the scanner is working. This means you don’t have to stop the scanning process, every time you have to load paper in the scanner.
Feed Mode Switch
One of the great features of this scanner is the Feed Mode Switch. This switch is positioned above the ADF loading area. When you move the switch, the scanner allows for manual feeding of documents.
What is great is that you can switch the manual feed on and off in the same job. The straight paper path of this scanner makes it quite easy to scan most documents automatically. But, you will definitely start using this feature more and more once you understand its feeding performance.
It’s a great feature when you have mixed documents in that same batch. This includes different sizes, various types of documents, types of paper weights or thickness. It will help prevent document damage, but also allow you to scan fragile paper, plastic cards, envelopes or other thicker materials.
Operation Panel
Operation panels for scanners are the norm now. Besides giving you basic information about the machine, you can also check for errors without having to enable the error recovery guide.
It also provides feed information for situations in which the machine does not operate optimally. We also love how you can enable and disable options on the fly, directly from the panel buttons.
At the same time, you will get basic info, such as time in operation, scanning counter or consumable life.
Fi-7600 Scanner Driver Features
Fujitsu calls its scanning driver Paperstream IP. This driver comes in two standards, Twain and ISIS. Twain is the more popular one because it’s easier to find libraries and incorporate the driver into custom made scanning software.
Some scanning and document management software still requires drivers with an ISIS protocol. Therefore it makes sense for Fujitsu to still offer it.
What is great about the Paperstream IP driver, is that you can use it on just about any Fujitsu scanner. It works just like the Kofax Vrs driver, except that it’s bundled for free with the scanner.
For example, if you have used a Fujitsu fi7160 before, with the Paperstream IP driver, using the Fi7600 document scanner is more or less identical.
Practically it connects to your Fujitsu Scanner and then applies a set of scanning modes and features that are pretty much standard throughout the entire Fujitsu range. The exception to this is the Fujitsu Scansnap series. For example, the Scansnap ix500 does not work with the Paperstream IP.
Image Mode – Color, Grayscale or Black and White
The image modes for scanning include the 3 basic ones, listed above. What’s great though is the advanced modes for each one.
For example, for color scanning, Fujitsu lets you choose the tonal value. It offers an AUTOMATIC feature, which calculates how the image should come out. We would recommend using this feature for documents with text and graphics.
The scanner also features Error Diffusion, but the NORMAL scanning mode gives you predictable results, so we recommend sticking to that.
You should avoid it when you are scanning images and documents with pictures. Because of darker areas, the algorithm will have the wrong values for calculation, therefore giving the wrong result. You will get highly distorted and pixilated images because of this.
In those cases, you should use the NORMAL feature. This adjusts the light levels and applies a limited correction to the images. The value is fixed and you will get consistent results from a page to another.
Having different tones for Color is of great help, as it allows you to scan a multitude of documents, from standard paper sheets to high gloss photographic paper.
Productivity Features of the Driver
Paperstream IP contains some productivity features of real help in a working environment.
Dynamic Threshold or Advanced DTC are good functions for auto image processing. The driver will apply image settings dynamically, which in turn improves the homogeneity of your scanned batch of documents. This feature can also be set up with Auto Color Detection.
Blank Page Detection – This feature detects blank pages automatically and together with the scanning software you can either mark them for visual inspection or remove them directly.
Background Cleanup – We love this feature as it outputs documents with a clean background. This makes it easier when you are collecting data from documents. The background pattern removal can be switched OFF, or the threshold level can be adjusted manually.
Hole Punch Removal is a useful feature because it will automatically detect holes and fill them with the surrounding background color or make them white. It really helps with the general quality of the scanned documents.
Patch Code detection and 2D barcode for Paperstream are very nice functions. I love using them to automatically sort scanned images. This lets me mark them automatically for further image processing, indexing and even regrouping into different folders.
Scanning Software
The newest scanning software from Fujitsu is Paperstream Capture. It comes in 2 versions, the standard one, which is bundled with the scanners and PaperStream Capture Pro, for which you need to pay extra.
As a top tip, from time to time, Fujitsu offers more expensive scanners with free Paperstream Capture Pro software. If you want to buy a Fujitsu scanner and you have this possibility, we suggest you go for it. It will save you a lot of money and provide you with increased productivity.
The software itself simplifies the scanning work significantly. When compared to Kofax Express, it has fewer features. But sometimes less is more.
The scanning settings can be changed on the fly from the software window. Another way is to use the driver default option, which lets you get more detailed and change scanning settings directly from the driver.
There are 3 separate modes to operate the Paper Stream Capture:
- Scan Mode
- Batch Manager
- Configure Profiles
Scan Mode
The software will display the scanning profiles with a little icon for each of them. The icon can be chosen based on your needs, so you can easily spot a given profile.
When you click a scanning profile, the software will connect to the FI 7600 and start the scanning job. Of course, based on your settings, there will be slight differences. For example, if you have selected a batch folder, it will ask you to input the name of the folder before starting the actual scanning.
Batch Manager
In the batch manager, you can deal with batches that are in scanning, in the release mode or have been started but not released.
For example, when you scan a larger batch, the release of that batch might take longer than a couple of minutes. In order to improve, Fujitsu has made this to run in the background while you can continue scanning your jobs.
You can also deal with batches that you’ve started and for somewhat ever reason, you have decided to put them on stand by. Canceling the job might make you lose all the information you’ve scanned. Therefore, you leave it pending, and you can come back to it later, adding further scans to the batch.
Configure Profiles
This mode allows you to edit, update or even create new scanning profiles. I always recommend duplicating an existing profile and making the necessary adjustments to adapt it to specific needs.
When you create a totally new profile, it might take you 5 minutes or so to edit one. In the profile settings, you can select and edit a couple of options.
The most important ones are related to the Source, where you configure the scanner settings and the destination. In the destination tab, you can edit elements such as file format, multi or single page, and location where you want the files saved.
There are also advanced features such as barcode recognition and separation, patch code detection, metadata, indexing and also advanced file naming.
An interesting feature is the Scanner Central Admin software. This allows a system administrator to easily export and import scanning profiles to new scan stations. The same can be said to computers where the operating system has been reinstalled. Deploying scanning profiles literally takes minutes.
Should you buy the Fujitsu Fi-7600 scanner?
If you are still in doubt whether to buy the Fi-7600 we will try to sum things up for you.
The price of this machine is within market averages. The scanner should cost around 4400$, which is more or less the same amount you would be paying for a Canon DR-G2110 or a Panasonic KV-S4065CW.
While both of the two are good equipment, the Fujitsu offers much better scanning quality than the two. The software is much better than the Capture Perfect software Canon currently offers.
I would say it offers more or less the same features as the Panasonic software, but the Fujitsu scanner is a newer machine with better features.
All in all, we think the FI 7600 is definitely worth buying, as it is a good equipment and software combination. The machine was launched in 2017, which is pretty recent, while the software is under continuous development, with a paid option in the Paperstream Capture Pro.