Portable Scanner Guide for Laptop Computers

A portable scanner offers security, portability, and the ease of searching that only electronic media can provide. Paper may be charming, but it's no match for a scanner when you need to digitize documents on the go.

If your desk is cluttered with business cards, a card scanner can help you make the leap to all-digital contact management. Optical character-recognition software bundled with these scanners converts the printed cards into digital records compatible with a variety of contact-management applications - and some include bundled services that help keep your contact info up-to-date in the years to come.

Portable scanners are now made that are small enough for you to take on business trips and easily fit in an attache case and are compatible with Outlook, Outlook Express, and Lotus Organizer.

For document scanning while traveling, a sheet-fed portable scanner is the way to go. These devices typically weigh under a pound, will fit neatly into your luggage, and handle single sheets with aplomb. Handheld scanners won't equal the image quality of their larger cousins, but they are useful for scanning text from books or magazines. Depending on the model, they scan black and white or color, at a rate of up to six pages a minute. Scanners with a USB interface are a great choice. korean-beauty.es

In addition to image-resolution, which is measured in dots per inch (dpi), color depth is a key determinant of image quality. For scanning photos at high quality, 48 bits is sufficient. Eight-bit grayscale is plenty for scanning text.

While most scanners use a CCD scanning element similar to those used in digital cameras and camcorders, some portable scanners use the newer contact image sensor (CIS) technology, which uses a single row of LEDs and sensors. While CIS scanners are more compact, their image quality can't match that of CCD scanners.