Make life easier with a scanner automatic document feeder! Do you wish you could just get things cleaned up at home? Here’s an idea. Get rid of old bills. Reduce clutter. Organize your paperwork. The solution is to just scan and shred.
Most people have a multifunction machine that includes a flatbed scanner. It must seem tedious for them to scan, let’s say, a bunch of old bills. The solution is having a scanner with ADF, i.e., a scanner with automatic document feeder.
The system you set up should be thus: gather a pile of paper to be scanned. There’s a reason why you were hanging on to those old pieces of paper in the first place. Wasn’t there? Lay them face down in the ADF document scanner. Scan. If it tells you to scan the back sides and you would like to do so, go ahead. There! Now you can just shred those pages. This should now become a good habit. Open a bill, scan it, shred it. Live a clean life!
How can you make this happen? Let’s go through some specifics of what to buy. For most people, ADF scanners should be pretty much all one and the same. You shouldn’t need to buy another one for years to come. So, if you spend a moderate amount on one now, it should give you good service in not only scanning your bills, but also in scanning your travel documents, pictures, diplomas, old family pictures, etc.
Hence, invest about a hundred dollars in getting a good, refurbished HP scanner such as the HP Scanjet 8250 Digital Color Scanner with ADF. It was built for small office use, so it should be more than sufficient for a home user. Most of the auction sites would sell this model for about that much. If you find other ones that are in the lower, i.e., 5500 series, that is all right as well. Although HP is the biggest name in this market, it is not the only one. Other brands to consider would be Brother, Kodak, and Bell + Howell.
Don’t concern yourself too much about the speed of scanning since you are not running a document imaging operation where saving half a minute when scanning one years’ worth of bank statements would make a huge difference to you. All you need to worry about is that it is in good, workable condition.
From the time you take ownership, there is very little to do in taking care of it. Just keep it covered so dust does not enter it. Once in a while, maybe before every other use, clean the platen glass — as it is called — with some window cleaner. Avoid spraying the cleaner onto the glass. Rather, spray cleaner on a soft cloth and then clean the platen glass with it.
Scanning will generate image files that will need to be organized by naming them correctly and putting them in appropriate folders. Also, look at the options for the resolution of the image. This is listed as d.p.i. which stands for ‘dots per inch’. For bills, 150 d.p.i. suffices and for pictures, set it much higher, such as 1200 d.p.i. Happy organizing with your scanner automatic document feeder. Live free of clutter!
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