Review: Automate Document Scanning

Scanners are a vital part of any business office infrastructure: When documents need to be converted to and stored in electronic form, there really is no substitute. At one time, scanners were very expensive and pages had to be fed in manually, but products like Hewlett-Packard's Scanjet N6010 bring features like automatic document feeders, duplex scanning and scan-to-PDF functionality that add new efficiency to daily office life.

With a price of $499.99, the Scanjet N6010 packs in a lot of functionality at a reasonable price for small and midsize customers.

The HP Scanjet N6010 can scan at resolutions up to 600 dots per inch (dpi) in 48-bit color or 256 levels of grayscale. It scans at speeds up to 18 pages per minute (ppm), but that's in black and white and at the scanner's default resolution of 200 dpi. Users have the choice of scanning documents at resolutions of 75, 150, 200, 300 or 600 dpi. Of course, the higher the dpi, the longer scans take and the larger the file sizes will be. CRN Test Center engineers found that the Scanjet N6010 did indeed scan 18 pages in black and white in just 59 seconds.

The HP Scanjet N6010 also features built-in automatic duplex scanning, taking images of dual-sided pages without slowing down. Double-sided documents can be scanned at speeds up to 18 ppm or, more appropriately, 36 images per minute (ipm).

The unit's automatic document feeder can handle up to 50 sheets of 20-pound paper stock. The feeder has adjustable paper guides that allow the scanner to accommodate a wide variety of paper types and sizes, thick or thin, and ranging from small business cards to legal-size documents measuring 8.5 inches x 14 inches.

Another key convenience feature is the Scanjet N6010's one-touch scan-to-PDF function. Pressing a single button on the scanner's front panel quickly scans a stack of documents and saves them to the Adobe PDF format using a default date-related naming convention. File names then can be changed from the default to whatever the user prefers. In addition to the PDF format, scanned images also can be saved in TIFF, JPEG and Microsoft Word formats.

HP also includes bundled NewSoft Presto BizCard Reader software, which, like a stand-alone business card reader, can store the information printed on business cards in a digital database. It's an extra feature that provides an easy way to keep track of important business contacts.

The scanner features a USB 2.0 interface, which makes for easy plug-and-play operation. Included with the scanner are power and USB cables, an external power adapter, a paper path cleaning cloth, a setup and support guide, software on CD-ROM and multilanguage stickers that describe the functions of the control buttons and LED indicators, which can be applied to a pull-down panel on the front of the scanner. The unit is backed by a one-year limited warranty.

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