Both are called scanners, but they are two different tools for different jobs — not two grades of the same tool. The mistake that derails archiving projects starts right here.
A flatbed takes one sheet at a time — right for photos, books and light use. A feeder scanner takes a stack and captures both sides in minutes — that is the archiving tool. If the job is digitising an archive, the feeder is not a luxury; it is the difference between finishing and stalling.
| Item | Flatbed — CanoScan | Feeder — imageFORMULA |
|---|---|---|
| Feeding | One sheet on the glass | A full stack in the feeder |
| Both sides in one pass | No | Yes |
| Double-feed detection | Not applicable | Included |
| Deskew | You place the sheet yourself | Automatic |
| Books and bound documents | Yes | No |
| Cards and receipts | Yes, but slowly | Yes, quickly |
| Best for | Home and small office | Archiving, invoices and daily batch work |
A flatbed produces excellent quality. The problem is not the resulting image — it is that you lift the lid, place a sheet, close it and press scan, a thousand times over. A thousand sheets on a flatbed can take days. The same thousand on a feeder takes under an hour, both sides included.
What sets imageFORMULA scanners apart is not only speed — the bundled software performs OCR, names the file from the document's own content, and exports it to a network folder or a document management system. Without that, you will still be naming files by hand — the second biggest reason archiving projects stall.
Still unsure? Tell us your monthly volume and what you use it for and we will recommend — often the cheaper one.
Ask usYes — some imageFORMULA models combine a feeder with a flatbed, which suits a mix of ordinary documents and books or fragile originals.
For moderate scanning, yes. For a full archive digitisation project, a dedicated scanner is faster, handles older paper and mixed sizes better, and its software is built specifically for archiving.
Most of it, yes — there are settings for thin and damaged paper. We always start with a sample of your own paper to learn what proportion needs manual handling before estimating the project.
Talk to us and the ITCO team will recommend the devices and solutions that match your workload and budget.
