A handheld scanner, as the name suggests, refers to an electronic device that performs the same tasks as that of a flatbed scanner. It is used to scan physical documents into their digital forms that can be stored, edited, transferred and emailed digitally. Handheld or portable police scanners are like a walkie-talkie in that they can be carried anywhere. Vehicle or Car Police Scanner Vehicle or car police scanners can be installed in the dashboard of a vehicle like a CD player. Home or Base Police Scanner.

The TaoTronics Document Scanner is extremely portable and very affordable. It's handheld, but produces very good quality files.

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Pros

Unlike most scanners, this TaoTronics can scan almost any surface, since it's handheld. For example it's easy to scan books, which would not fit into a sheet-fed or flatbed scanner, where the paper has to go through or into the scanner.

It's capable of scanning at a 1050 DPI(dots per inch) resolution, which results in a sharp scanned image quality. This maximum resolution is similar to the one found in more expensive alternatives.

This is one of the smallest and lightest scanners available on the market. It weighs just 5.9 ounces and measures 10.5 x 1 x 1.2 inches.

You can add an SD card up to 32 GB in size and the scanner automatically saves the documents on it.

The scanner has a small color display, which makes it easier to do operations such as changing the scan settings or choosing the output format.

It's a great budget option if you know you'll just need to scan documents during one specific project and don't want to spend a fortune on a scanner. Portable scanners, especially the ones that are not handheld, often cost 5-10 times more than this one.

Cons

There is no option to scan several pages into one PDF file. This can be a headache when scanning documents longer than one page, since you will end up with a lot of PDF files. Luckily, there is free software available online that lets you merge several PDF files into one. Of course, this takes some extra effort.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software transforms a scanned picture into editable text. The OCR that this scanner comes with is not capable of consistently reading characters accurately. Also, this software is not Mac or Windows 10 compatible — it was made for older Windows operating systems. Of course, you can always get other OCR software that is compatible with your system.

Scanning with a handheld scanner requires some skill and practice. The first scans might not be perfect, due to improper speed or unstable movement of the scanner.

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Handheld scanners are smaller, portable versions of their desktop cousins. Like a flatbed scanners, they scan documents, drawings and other flat media, turning them into digital files you can store, edit or email from a computer. The handheld scanner’s sophisticated miniature electronics put all the basic functions you’d expect in a desktop model, plus digital document storage, into a device you can pack in a briefcase.

Description

A handheld scanner is a bar-shaped electronic device that digitally captures and stores images. Portable and running on batteries, it has controls and a display for selecting different scan modes, showing the amount of memory available for documents and indicating the status of a scan. Mobile professionals such as salespeople use handheld scanners to capture memos, contracts, sketches and photos with high resolution.

Detector and Rollers

The heart of the handheld scanner is its detector array: a set of tiny light sensors formed into a line that takes up most of the scanner’s length. As it passes over a document, the scanner illuminates the page, and the sensors pick up the image or text as a set of points of light. Rollers on the scanner touch the document and measure the length of the surface over which the scanner passes, allowing the scanner to correctly scale the image.

Electronics

A handheld scanner’s electronic circuitry does the same job a desktop scanner does, converting points of light from the sensors into color or gray-scale signals before turning the electronic signals into digital data. The circuits assign a number value for every level of gray or red-green-blue color combination, and store the numbers as digital data files in a mini SD or other portable memory device.

Software

The handheld scanner has built-in software to manage internal housekeeping chores such as organizing its memory, capturing image data from the detector array and processing the image into standard JPEG and other computer file formats. The software checks the quality of a scan and prompts you to rescan the document if it detects a problem. Other software, which runs on a computer, interfaces with the scanner and does further processing tasks. The desktop software also lets you edit, crop and correct color, brightness and contrast problems in the scanned image. Other software performs OCR-type processing, converting the image into text you can edit with your word processor.

About the Author

Chicago native John Papiewski has a physics degree and has been writing since 1991. He has contributed to 'Foresight Update,' a nanotechnology newsletter from the Foresight Institute. He also contributed to the book, 'Nanotechnology: Molecular Speculations on Global Abundance.'

Photo Credits

• Thomas Northcut/Photodisc/Getty Images

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