Scanners are inexpensive but they do take up space on your desktop and you need room for opening the cover to place or remove an object.
1) Before you buy a scanner, decide what you want it for: all
materials, including
text from most sources, photos, slides, negatives, filmstrips -- or for
specialized use only, such as a slide scanner or a handheld scanner for
books
or magazines, to be used with a very steady hand or a guide rail.
Flatbed scanners are multi-purpose: all can do text as well as
graphics; some
can handle slides, negatives and filmstrips in addition.
2) Many scanners work with both PCs and Macs but you must know what
operating
system and ports you have, e.g. USB or USB 2 or a SCSI card. Many
scanners for
PCs require Windows 98 SE (Second Edition) or later editions of Windows.
3) If true color is important to you, you also need to buy fairly
expensive hardware
for color calibration.
Scanner brands I like and buy, based on lab test results in PC
Magazine: HP,
Epson.
OCR (Optical Character
Recognition) software for TEXT: remember that
the
scanner produces a digitized image and that the software then needs to
translate the
image into readable text. Do you have trouble deciphering people's
handwriting?
Yes, so please have patience with the poor OCR software that needs to
differentiate between i,l,1,!, or g and q. The first few pages you scan
will be
"training" sessions for the software; afterwards, spellcheck your
text in your favorite word processor and watch out for possible
problems
especially with the letters shown above.
The Professional packages I
use/own/recommend:
a. CAERE Omnipage Pro for many languages: select, e.g., US English or
Spanish
or French; the software will use the corresponding dictionary,
recognize words
or flag unrecognized ones.
b. XEROX Textbridge Pro: this is excellent and very accurate for
English
language texts.
A) Affordable packages (about
$100), very good:
a. Ulead PhotoImpact -- search for this on the web and buy it online;
newer and
less expensive than PaintShopPro and with more capability (about $80)
b. Jasc PaintShopPro -- search for this on the web and buy it online:
for
downloading or as a boxed set CD and a manual (about $90)
c. Adobe Photo Elements, a lighter version of Photoshop.
B) Expensive packages, for heavy
serious duty professional use, with a steep
learning curve, overkill for most of us:
d. CorelDraw -- judged to be the best package on the market
e. Adobe Photoshop -- popular especially among Mac users, sort of
coasting on
its reputation. Talk to someone in the bookstore about the
academic/educational
version prices if you really need this.