i'm looking to buy a good document scanner with a document feeder. I want to convert lots of paper documents into pdf.

can anyone give me recommendations on makes and models. I'm not sure what the budget should be, I would guess $200-400?

Need to scan ~1000 pages initially then ~50 per month. the biggest problem I see is that the document feeder would jam easily, especially with older papers that have been folded and slightly crinkled.

Also need good software to go with it to store it all in PDF.

12/8/2008 11:46:17 AM

one of these or one of the newer ones in the 9000 series model line, tcp/ip and automatically makes a pdf of whatever you want

12/8/2008 12:18:01 PM

^yeah, those things are beasts

you can usually find them fairly cheaply on ebay if you're persistent

12/8/2008 12:19:34 PM

That looks like a sturdy unit, thanks.

What about software? It sounds like this unit will create the pdf just by entering the commands on it. But lets say I want to scan in 50 documents of varying page lengths, and then sit down at my PC to determine pages 2-5 go in PDF1, page 6 is PDF2, page 7-8 is PDF3, etc? Does the HP unit come with bundled software to do that, or is there some software I should buy?

12/8/2008 12:36:38 PM

Okay, that ^^^ seems like overkill to me. Just get a Fujitsu ScanSnap and be done with it. I've recommended the S510 to several of my users recently and they've been happy with it--color duplex scanning and fairly simple software to do what you want with the PDF conversions. Only drawback would be your initial scan load--if you were scanning 1k pages, you'd probably need to do something like batches of 50 pages, it's a simple gravity-feed document hopper and can't hold a lot at once.

12/8/2008 12:40:15 PM

you can get one of those ^^^^ for cheaper than a scansnap

12/8/2008 12:56:50 PM

Quote :

"What about software? It sounds like this unit will create the pdf just by entering the commands on it. But lets say I want to scan in 50 documents of varying page lengths, and then sit down at my PC to determine pages 2-5 go in PDF1, page 6 is PDF2, page 7-8 is PDF3, etc? Does the HP unit come with bundled software to do that, or is there some software I should buy?"

you are going to have to make each one because the unit will prompt you for a document name. the advantage to this unit is that it is very solid and there were a ton made so it should be easy to get parts if you get one. it also will do manual duplexing and you dont have to feed each page manually, that is where the time saver is.

im sure that if you scanned everything into one giant pdf, you can use adobe or something else to split it how you like it

12/8/2008 1:17:01 PM

i've noticed that these HP ScanJets come with a variety of JetDirect cards: 600N, 615N, 620N and maybe others. Is there any significant difference between them?

12/15/2008 9:11:50 AM

no

they may only be 10 Mbps though but there is no way that the scanner will operate quickly enough to saturate the network adapter

12/15/2008 10:13:12 AM