[sane-devel] Good office scanners with ADF support?

[Jens Gulden]

Philip J. Hollenback wrote:
>  This scanner is destined
> to replace a fax machine and so must have and automatic document
> feeder capable of holding 50 sheets.  It also needs to work with a
> linux system

My private scanner and printer is a Brother MFC 3420C 
(http://www.brother.com/europe/fax/info/mfc3420c/mfc3420c_ove.html). It 
is a scan/print/copy/fax combination, which I bought mainly for ADF 
scanning, but now use for printing, too. It was much cheaper than a 
scanner-only device with additional ADF support (about 150 EUR). 
According to my experiences it's about 50 pages that you can feed in per 
batch, a web-page at Brother I found says 20 pages, but I'm quite sure 
it's more with 'normal' paper... maybe it's possible to try it out in a 
shop.

The Linux support is GREAT. Brother offers both SANE-drivers and 
lpr-drivers (for printing) by themselves 
(http://solutions.brother.com/linux/sol/printer/linux/sane_drivers.html, 
http://solutions.brother.com/linux/sol/printer/linux/lpr_drivers.html), 
and both installed and work without problems.

Unlike most other cheap scan/print/copy/fax devices, it can scan both 
via ADF and via flatbed, many such devices have ADF only. The 
disadvantage of this is that it's quite a big box. (Looks like a 
photocopier washed too hot, like 50% of the size of a 'real' photocopier.)

If the images you are going to scan are fax-like quality, and not 
art-paintings (as your mail suggests), this may be useful to you. If you 
don't need an optional flatbed, maybe another device of that company is 
suitable - I think their Linux support is worth to take a look at.

Hope this is helpful,
Jens