Epson DS-C330 scanner, sheet-fed, duplex, 600 dpi, A4, USB

In a sheet-fed scanner the pages travel through the device, unlike a flatbed, where each sheet has to be placed on the glass individually. Invoices, contracts and receipts are digitised faster and with less manual handling. A sheet-fed scanner cannot scan books or bound documents, because each page has to pass through the mechanism.

The DS-C330 scans in duplex: the front and back of a sheet are captured in one pass, with no need to turn the paper over. For two-sided contracts, forms and documents with notes on the back, that saves time and keeps the page order in the file correct.

An optical resolution of 600 × 600 dpi leaves plenty in reserve for documents: text stays sharp even in small print, stamps and signatures. The maximum paper size is A4, which covers standard office documents. High-resolution photo scanning is a job for other devices, but for a paper archive this quality is more than adequate.

The scanner connects to the computer over Hi-Speed USB, compatible with the USB 2.0 specification. A wired connection is simple and stable, with no network settings or passwords involved. This model has no Wi-Fi; for a wireless version, look at the Epson ES-C320W.

Accountants and small business owners digitising invoices and receipts; offices moving from a paper archive to a digital one; and home users who want contracts, documents and letters on their computer with a single desktop device. All of them need a simple device that plugs in over USB and requires no network setup.