How to use a scanner?

A scanner is an awesome piece of equipment that allows you to copy documents, photos, images, and other items for use with the computer. Although it works a lot like a copy machine, it will instead create an image on a piece of paper, and then create a digital image that can be displayed on a computer screen, manipulated, emailed, or even printed.

The two main types of scanners are the flatbed and sheetfed scanner. The flatbed scanner has a lid that opens up to reveal a glass plate where the item to be scanned is placed. Most types of flatbed scanners can scan paper documents, books, photos, and other flat objects.

A sheetfed scanner can accommodate only flat pieces of paper such as paper documents, newspaper and magazine clips, and photos. The scanner itself is a piece of hardware that is accompanied by software which allows the hardware to communicate with the computer.

The flatbed scanner is the most popular. There are many manufacturers that create these types of scanners, and there are also companies that develop scanner software. Basically, this means the computer world has to accommodate an increasing number of combinations of scanners and software. Instructions on using scanners are very hardware/software specific due to the number of manufacturers involved.

Some types of scanners will operate automatically. Once you have placed the object to be scanned in the scanner, the scanner will engage, and the software process begins. Other types of scanners begin the process only when the Start or Scan button has been pressed. In other cases, the user must initiate the scan through the software. This basically means clicking on the scanner software icon on the desktop or clicking Start, then Programs, then clicking the appropriate icon.

Once the software has started, the scan can usually be initiated by clicking on a scan icon. If such an icon isn’t there, try choosing File from the menu at the top of the screen. Once you are in the File menu, the most common choice is the menu choice Acquire. If you don’t have any of these options, check the manual that accompanied the software or try the menu choice that seems like the best option.

When the scan window is showing, many scanners will give you the option of previewing the item to be scanned before the actually scanning occurs. The preview of the scan is a quick scan of the image that will show you the position of the object to be scanned on the glass. The area that is to be scanned will be shown by a dotted line.

Look at the preview and rotate or reposition the object on the glass if it is necessary. You can use your mouse to move the dotted line to resize or change the perimeter of the scan. Simply click your mouse on the line then drag it to reposition it to scan more or less of the object.

Before you actually initiate the scan, you will want to set the scanning resolution. Resolution is measured in dpi (dots per inch). You should start off with a dpi that is between 100 and 200. The higher the dpi, the more detailed the image will be. The higher the resolution however, the larger the file, and the more room it will consume on your hard drive. Images that are scanned at a very high resolution can be very big; so don’t use a high resolution if you don’t need to.

You should think about how you will use the image before you set the actual scan resolution. Images that are only going to be shown on a computer screen don’t need a high resolution.

Here are a few terms you should be familiar with then scanning:

• TWAIN – This is the industry standard that is used to obtain scan information and transfer that information between the scanner and the computer. Just about all scanners that are made today are TWAIN compatible.
• OCR – This is a scanner that simply takes a picture of the text on a page. In order to use a word processing program to work with text that you have scanned, you will need to convert the picture of the text into a format that will be understood by a word processing program. An OCR (Optical Character Recognition) program will make the conversion.

Don’t be scared to play around with the various scan settings. If you don’t like the results of a scan, simply throw it away and try again. Practice makes perfect.