Document Management Solution
Review of the Canon 220P ScanFront Document Scanner
Overview
Ultrasonic sensor
Fingerprint scanner
Macro buttons
Duplex scanning
Programming
Linux
File types
Sending files
Maintenance
Specs
Where to use
Where to buy
Afraid of paperless?
Your Document Management Systems Solution
Canon 220P ScanFront Document Scanner Review
Canon
ScanFront 220P
Overview.
The new
Canon ScanFront 220P medium/high-volume network, duplex, color document scanner is simply
fantastic. Just like every one of Canon products, from copy machines to
cameras, this high speed document scanner is simply the best. I finally
decided to make my office as paperless as possible and got a ScanFront 220P
document scanner. I love it! On my first day using the scanner, I scanned
hundreds of papers which I promptly threw out or shredded, emptying
1/2 file drawer. I've been scanning a few file folders every day
and now have more space, less clutter on my desk and everywhere else, and greater
security. It's easy to set up, easy-to-use, easy to maintain yourself,
works great and does everything a large or small office needs.
Canon makes two document scanners in the 220 line, the 220 and the
220P. Both scanners are designed for use in a large office with
high-volume document management and scanning needs. Its design easily
allows use of multiple scanners in various locations throughout an office
and/or multiple offices. These document scanners can be used by
individuals or shared by groups.
The difference between the two scanners is that the 220P and has a
fingerprint scanner and an ultrasonic sensor for detecting and stopping
double page feeds. The ultrasonic sensor is worth the extra price over
the 220 and is my reason for recommending the 220P.
The MSRP for the 220P is $2,195, but like most items you can find it online
for a lot less. Don't let the price stop you. While this scanner
has some outstanding features, that you will not find in less expensive
scanners, the ultrasonic sensor and the on-screen macro buttons are two
essential features that make the 220P the clear choice for a small office.
My law office is a solo practice and I do not need the fingerprint scanner
and other security features, but as you will see below, the other features
designed for high-volume scanning are essential for document management in
even a small office.
Ultrasonic sensor. My Canon copy machine never grabs more than one
page at a time, but standalone scanners are substantially smaller with fewer
rollers and are more susceptible to grabbing more than one page at a time.
The ultrasonic sensor is a feature you must have. When you're quickly
scanning a large number of documents, you don't want to find at a later date
that some pages were grabbed at the same time and not scanned.
On my first day of scanning, I decided to scan and throw out some files
containing various bills for the last few years. I scanned several
hundred papers and only encountered double feeding twice. The
ultrasonic sensor immediately stopped the automatic scanning, warned me and
presented me with three options. I stopped the scanning, fanned the
papers, re-scanned and finished without missing a page. The ultrasonic
sensor bounces sound waves between the papers to determine if more then one
page is being grabbed. This method is extremely effective and is
simply a necessity for headache free scanning. Additionally, the
scanner software has an additional feature to detect double-page feeding by
checking the page length, which can be turned on or off.
User password/fingerprint scanner. The 220/220P can require the user
to enter a password with the on-screen keyboard and for high security,
different users can be set to have different privileges. The 220P also
has a fingerprint scanner which can be used instead of entering a password
for quick and easy user logon. The scanners have very sophisticated levels
of variable security for many users, which will be reviewed in detail soon.
On-screen buttons.
You can easily create up to 1,056 multiple on-screen buttons to provide simple
mindless one touch
scanning that the most inept office staff can use with the 8.5 inch color
touch screen. A different set of on-screen buttons can be created for
each user. The on-screen buttons can be created in various colors and
are labeled.
These buttons are simply macros which you can set up for different types of
scanning, such as black and white, gray scale or color and at various
resolutions. I have buttons set up as follows: B&W 300 dpi; B&W 600
dpi; B&W Duplex 300 dpi; Color 150 dpi; and Color Duplex 150 dpi. I
scan most text documents at B&W 300 dpi and use B&W 600 dpi for documents
which have light text or documents for which I want to keep a better quality
copy. The other buttons I use for color and duplex scanning.
Without using one touch on-screen buttons, I would have to go to my computer
and spend some time setting up the scanner software to import the documents
at the desired color and resolution. The on-screen buttons allow me to scan any type of document in different
ways without having to go to my computer and set up the scanner software each time I scan
a document. The
on-screen buttons make scanning extremely easy and a considerable time
saver.
On-screen buttons can also be created to send scanned documents to various
locations with just one touch. For instance, one button can send
scanned documents to your computer and another button can be set to send
scanned documents to a particular e-mail address. I frequently send
medical records to a doctor who works for me. Now, I can press one
button to scan the documents and instantly e-mail the scanned file to the
doctor.
If you know what you are doing, you might not need these on-screen buttons,
but they save a lot of time and make it real easy. It's like power
windows. You don't really want to go back to manual windows in your
car. I like putting the paper in the tray, pressing one button and
it's done. For office staff that is slightly less tech savvy, these
buttons make scanning foolproof and therefore, a necessity.
Duplex scanning. Two scanners are used to allow single pass scanning of
both sides of the paper at the same time! Another great feature, this
allows for very fast scanning of double-sided documents; much increased
reliability without any jamming since the paper does not have to travel through many rollers
and paths;
and decreased maintenance since there are fewer rubber rollers to dry out
and need replacement.
Programming. Programming and scanning options can be selected from
either the scanner's screen which has a very nice GUI (graphical user
interface, like your computer's desktop) and on-screen keyboard, or from
your computer's web browser (such as IE or Firefox). It's easy to
enter commands using the scanner's screen, but I like using the browser on
my computer. To use your computer's browser, simply type in the IP address
of the scanner in the browser's address bar.
If you have a large office with several scanners, entering commands from
your browser allows you or your administrator to add or delete users, add or
delete on-screen macro buttons and perform other programming options for all
scanners from any computer on the network.
Linux compatibility. The scanner's web
interface which is designed to be used by the admin cannot be used with
Firefox. In a small office, such as mine, I am the admin. I use
Windows on my main machine with both Internet Explorer and Firefox, so it's
not a problem for me. At this time, to use the web interface on a
Linux computer you will have to use Internet Explorer running in Wine or
Crossover Office, which really isn't much of an issue. It would just
be nicer to work with Firefox. I will be speaking with one of the
engineers at Canon to see if they can update the software to work with
Firefox.
The on-screen GUI should be independent of Windows, since the scanner is
computer independent, meaning that it does not have to be connected to a
computer to work.
The scanner probably has to communicate with Windows to send scanned
documents to a shared folder, so with Linux you would just turn on Samba to
create Windows shared folders and it should work.
File Types & File Names. Scanned files can be named in a variety of methods.
Default filenames can be assigned for each onscreen macro button.
Additionally, filenames can include the date scanned in the formats:
yyyymmdd; mmddyyyy; ddmmyyyy. Files can be scanned in either PDF,
JPEG, or TIF formats in B&W, grayscale, or color with a wide selection of
resolutions (up to 600 dpi) and compressions. OCR can be selected for
scanned files in eight different languages. If security is an issue,
scanned files can be encrypted.
File delivery options. Scanned files can be sent to any shared file
on any computer; sent by e-mail to any e-mail address; to FTP; USB memory;
and to a projector. If
you frequently send scanned files using the same delivery method, you can
easily set up an on-screen user macro button for one touch scanning. I
set up several macro buttons for different types of scanning to certain
destinations. For instance, I created one on-screen macro button for
B&W scanning at 300 dpi to a folder on my computer; another for B&W at 600
dpi to the same folder; another for color at 150 dpi; and another for B&W at
300 dpi which sends the scanned files by e-mail to a doctor who reviews
medical records for me.
Maintenance.
Another truly fabulous feature is that the 220 and 220P scanners have only one rubber roller that gets replaced. The roller lasts 30,000 scans and is
very simple to replace by an equipment phobic in less than 30 seconds.
If you can replace a battery, you can replace the roller. This is one
machine that you won't have to buy a maintenance contract for.
Open the cover using the latch (1) to reveal the roller with
Lift the roller access door to open (4),
Scan up to 40lb bond paper and will scan as small as
business cards with up to 110lb cover stock.
Document size from business card up to 8.5x14 (2.00-8.5 width and
2.76-14.00 length).
Document feeder can handle up to 50 sheets of ordinary paper
Output Resolutions: 100 x 100dpi, 150 x 150dpi, 200 x 200dpi, 300 x 300dpi,
400 x 400dpi, 600 x 600dpi.
Colors: Black & White, Gray scale 8 bit (256 levels), Color 24 bit.
512 MB memory to improve processing programs & images.
Two USB 2.0 ports (for USB memory devices, USB keyboard and USB mouse).
Two PS/2 ports, one for a keyboard and one for a mouse.
Scanning can be controlled from either the on-screen touch display or from
the software interface on your computer.
Duty Cycle 1,000 sheets per day.
Consumable: exchange roller 2445B001AA every 30,000 sheets.
Compact design – 12.2” x 9.21” footprint & 7.5 lbs.
Where to use. You can use just one scanner in a small
office or several scanners in different locations for a large office.
You can also keep one at home which you can use to keep your home from being
cluttered with papers and receipts and if you do any work at home, you can send files to a folder
on your office computer via a VPN or send to your office by e-mail.
Where to buy. You can buy the Canon 220 and the 220P from
independent resellers or a Canon authorized reseller. If you buy from
a Canon authorized reseller, you will get telephone support. This can
be useful when connecting to your computer network. Just as with a
printer, the scanner can be connected to your network using DHCP which is
extremely easy to do without support, but sometimes DHCP does not work.
For some reason, when I tried to connect a laser printer to my computer
through a network, DHCP did not work and I had to assign a static IP address
to the printer. The same thing happened with the scanner.
Assigning a static IP can be a little more difficult, but is easy to do with
telephone support. Using a static IP instead of DHCP is a more
reliable method anyway.
Afraid of becoming a paperless office?
For those lawyers who have thought about becoming a paperless office but are
afraid that they could lose important documents because of a computer virus,
hard drive failure or motherboard failure, consider the fact that scanning
your documents will provide you with far greater security.
First of
all, you can always keep your paper files, but scanning documents will
provide you with substantially better security. With paper files, I always worried about a
fire. Now, that I scan every document, I no longer have to worry.
When I scan a document, it is backed up every day to an
internal hard drive and once per week to an external hard drive. Every
few months, I back up to DVD which I keep in a safe deposit box. Most
importantly, my computer is set to automatically back up online every day to
an off-site computer server at a company which also backs up the data.
Online back up service used to be expensive, but with the size of hard drives
increasing and the cost of storage crashing, automatic online backups are now
extremely inexpensive.
The company I use provides
unlimited backup storage
for only $5 per month with e-mail support or telephone support
with the
Pro online backup
service for
only another $5-$10 or slightly more if you need a tremendous amount of
storage. With inexpensive automatic online backup, becoming a
paperless office is far more secure than maintaining your old paper files.
Read about the Canon ScanFront 220P
document scanner at
www.canonscanningsuccess.com and start managing your
documents today.
the access door door closed (2).
Lift up the green tab (3) to release the roller,
Pull out the roller (4), replace with the new one and close.
That's it, you're done!
I highly recommend the Canon ScanFront 220P and can honestly say that this
is the most important piece of equipment I have besides my computer itself.
For the first time, I am able to clean up paper clutter at home and in my
office, easily search for and find documents I need, and feel secure knowing
that all my documents are backed up both on-site and off-site. I
started using a computer at home for the first time in 1989 and have an
advanced computer with multiple hard drives and a 30 inch monitor, but my
document management remained in the dark ages until now. It's time to
update your document management!
Philip L. Franckel, Esq.
HURT911®
