Wayne said "I'm going to do something I rarely do (and maybe have never done) and that's disagree with Fred."



I'm deeelighted to have Wayne disagree with me (or anyone else, for that matter).



That said, the problem with Wayne's "fill the gap" solution is, it makes a fair number of assumptions, some stated, some not.



·        Someone is actually paying attention to image quality.

·        The source paper is plain B&W text.

·        The copier's default setting is at 300 DPI or above.

·        The type size is 9 points or larger.

·        The quality of the original document is NOT marginal.

·        Production scanners are expensive.

·        Imaging software today does NOT tie into production scanners .



1.      Image quality control: the number of messages received by David Kreisel with some variant of “oh gee, mine does that too; I just discovered it” suggests that, in fact, VERY FEW organisations check the image quality. Does yours?

2.      Plain B&W text: today, more documents include graphics of various types than ever before.

3.      Default setting is at 300 DPI: how many people actually pay any sort of attention to this setting? Come to think of it, how many people actually pay any sort of attention to ANY of the settings? Isn’t that in fact one of the “selling points” of MFCs:  just shove in the paper and you’ll get good stuff?

4.      Type size:  I regularly see documents with type size much smaller than 9 points. And many organisations reduce large-format documents, such as architectural, cartographic, and engineering drawings to letter-size (or A4) sheets, for convenience.

5.      Quality of the original document:  of course, today NO ONE is still using 17th-generation photocopies of forms or old NCR forms. Are they?

6.      Production scanners are expensive:  that used to be true. Less so today. And you now can lease them (many—if not most—organisations lease the MFCs). For example (NOT AN ENDORSEMENT !!):

a.      Fujitsu fi-6130z color duplex scanner, 30/60 ipm, USD 879.00 (http://www.scantastik.com/hardware/fujitsu/fujitsu-scanners.htm)

b.      Fujitsu fi-5530C2 color scanner, 50/100 ipm, 11x17 ADF, USD 2,549.00 (http://www.scantastik.com/hardware/fujitsu/fujitsu-scanners.htm)

7.      Imaging software tie in:  both of the scanners listed above include TWAIN and ISIS driver support. So do all of the scanners that I’ve seen on the market. Does anyone know of any imaging software that does NOT tie in to one of those two drivers?



I stand by my comment on the general ineffectiveness of MFCs for scanning documents of business value.



Fred

-----------------------------------------------------------

Frederic J. Grevin, Vice-President

Records Management Department

New York City Economic Development Corporation • www.nycedc.com

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