The Advantages of Scanners

There are many advantages to using scanners, whether you are looking for added efficiency around the office or added functionality around the home. Today's multifunction printers commonly come equipped with capable scanners that allow you to make use of these devices without having to buy anything separately and without needing to take up more space, making them more useful and valuable than ever before.

Scanners today provide high quality in terms of resolution for both color and black and white documents. They also provide enough detail and resolution to handle images, photographs, graphics and designs. This sets them apart from a fax machine, which will typically struggle to reproduce color graphics and pictures. Resolution for scanners is listed in dpi, or dots per inch.

Scanners don't depend on the use of a phone line like a fax does. Additionally, there is no other end that needs to receive your scanned document in order to complete a successful transfer. With a fax, you're dependent upon your own successful transmission through a phone connection and the recipient's successful reception of that fax through their own phone line. Without needing either of these, a scanner is much more reliable and dependable. The only thing you need to have working is the machine itself, and then you can store the file to view or use later, send it to a recipient via email or share it over a network.

Using a scanner can also be environmentally friendly. Scanners create digital copies of documents, photos and files on your computer that you can email to other people or store and view on your own. Fax machines require hard copies and then reproduce more hard copies on more paper when they are received. Additionally, creating hard copies with a copy machine wastes both paper and energy.. Scanners reduce the amount of paper that is used and therefore are an environmentally friendly way to conduct business.

Scanners are very easy to use and the ones that are built into multifunction printers today can be used essentially without instruction or worry. Most settings are automatically adjusted and fine-tuned, leaving a user to only select basic options such as photograph or document, or color versus black and white. Once scanning is completed, the files can be sent straight to a computer or straight to an email account. Additionally, scanned files can be saved in a variety of formats, including images and PDF documents.