The Lemon Fool

Does anyone have a recommendation for an A4 flatbed colour scanner to be used with windows 10 and linux, please? I currently use an HP Scanjet which requires windows xp and appears to be failing with poor quality scans. A guide on spec would be useful too.

Thanks.

I use a Canon LIDE110, and have been very pleased with it. Good scans from a variety of original material. This has now been superseded by the LIDE300, which is very similar in appearance.

I use mine with a Mac, so cannot comment on use with Windows and Linux. The spec for the 300 say it is for use with Win 7 and up.

I bought a HP OfficeJet 3831 for £30 in November. It has a scanner with sheet feeder, and has scanned 1880 pages so far (and printed 1) Works with Simple-Scan under Linux.

Remarkable value given I don't intend to spend anything in Instant Ink

I just use my phone camera these days - it's quick, good resolution and means one less device and cable to clutter up the place. Pictures can be reduced in quality if needed (to reduce file size) either in-phone or with something like PIXresizer on the pc.

VRD

vrdiver wrote:I just use my phone camera these days - it's quick, good resolution and means one less device and cable to clutter up the place. Pictures can be reduced in quality if needed (to reduce file size) either in-phone or with something like PIXresizer on the pc.

I agree. Although I occasionally still use the Canon LIDE110 I bought some years ago, these days for one off scans I use Microsoft Office Lens on my phone to scan to jpg or PDF - https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... s&hl=en_GB or https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/microso ... 25059?mt=8

I had to digitally sign an online document the other day, quickly signed a bit of blank paper, camera phoned it using Office Lens, uploaded the image file to Docusign. About thirty seconds all told.
Technology...

I did all my slide collection on a Canon. It automatically despecalled the images, I did lots from the colour negatives too.

I have a Canon all in one printer that is convenient to use but lower quality.

I have a phone and tablet too for quick results.

But...if you want to do what I did with my slides and photos there is only one choice, a proper flatbed scanner. There are various graded models available.

Thanks.

I write and receive A4 letters which are kept and re-read, (from a charity), that need to be scanned clearly, squarely, and more or less to scale. A flatbed scanner seems best, although I can see that a camera works well for documents that just have to be seen and read once.

I scan all letters, bills and important correspondence using a cheap (£30) HP Envy 4507 on Linux coupled with a marvellous OpenSource application called PaperWork that works on Windows and Linux. The scanned documents are perfectly readable at the default resolution (300dpi) and can be printed out again if necessary. This application files all the scanned documents chronologically and supports tagging which makes searching much easier.

HTH - Andy

I have a Canon Lide25 which works reasonably well with Linux Mint. I say reasonably because firstly Mint thinks, and I've seen this somewhere, that it isn't a Canon at all, but some other make. Secondly, using Simple Scan, I find everything is on the dark side, so what I do is to scan, then save as a png (because it's lossless), open GIMP and use the Brightness/Contrast tool to improve matters. Messy I know, but adequate for the small amounts of copying I do.

I also have a Canon Lide 110 in storage for when the Lide 25 fails. I haven't tried it, but don't have any worries.

HTH,

ten0rman

For many years I have used an Epson Perfection 4990 (long superseded) which has been great for papers, photos and negatives.

The only thing I don't like is that I haven't worked out how to merge scans into one doc or pdf or jpg