Scanners are pieces of electronic equipment that have become part of the life of nearly every office environment. Computer work, and the need for digital transmissions make the need for a digital scanner a necessity in nearly every working environment.
Scanners have cut down on the amount of paper we have to use, and they have been able to help revolutionise how business and conditions are done. It has helped create a much easier way to send documents, photos and text long distance via email, fax and instant messenger.
Early scanners were in a pen model, or half page scanner. There are still scanners like that but the most powerful ones are roller fed or page scanners. And the most common is the flatbed scanner. It lies flat on a desk and you put the item to be scanned onto it, and close the lid.
A scanner works by taking a image that is analog and makes it into a digital code for whatever it is provided. New scanners have often software called OCR or optical character recognition, this allows the scanner to recognise text and sometimes even format the scanned text.
Most scanners have a flat surface where the document or image to be scanned is placed face down. A light bar passes over a document, or the document passes itself over the light. Either way the image is scanned in the following manner.
A flatbed scanner has a powerful small light that shines upward, and illuminates what is on the flatbed to be scanned. You press the scan button or trigger the scanner, and the scanner first warms up. Then, the light source passed over the item, and the scanner then is able to record the areas of light and dark, to copy what is on the flatbed into the memory of the scanner, or sometimes to a computer.
The digital information is “sensed” with sensors mounted on the flatbed, as the light passes over the image it records the reflected light and makes a digital image of the item. It then is saved into a file, or manipulated by the software to make sure that it is saved.
Black and white scanners were first, and only items in black and white could be used. Or, if something was a colour item then it was put into memory in shades of grey. This is called a greyscale image, and was the only way that early scanners could sense material, in shades of light and dark.
New scanners can sense and tell using newer diodes and scanners between colours, and colour scanners have been around for over 10 years now. As time passes the technology gets better and scanners become cheaper.
