How to Find the Right Hand-held Scanners

USB cable

Attaching a hand-held scanner to your computer can be a real convenience but it is important to choose the right equipment. There are a number of things to consider when choosing a scanner and it is important to consider each of these factors carefully before making a decision.

Instructions

1. Decide how much you want to spend on a hand-held scanner. The prices of these scanners vary widely, from less than $100 to many hundreds of dollars.

2. Decide whether you need optical character recognition in your hand-held scanner. OCR can be very useful if you need to scan paper documents and use them in a word processing program.

3. Make sure your computer can handle the type of scanner you are considering. Most scanners will connect using the computer's USB port, so make sure you have at least one USB port available.

4. Look for a hand-held scanner that can insert a particular part of a scanned source directly into a letter, spreadsheet or other document. Pen-type scanners can be used to cut out particular pieces of text and insert them into a document.

5. Look for a hand-held scanner that includes support for multiple languages if that is something you will need.

References

• Handheld Scanner Guide