Sheet-feed scanners

I've done some scanning that Al has found acceptable using an HP 6390c with Automatic Document Feeder. It's much slower than Al's, but several hundred pages a day is certainly doable. I use PaperPort Deluxe 9 on Windows 2000 with the HP scanning software to go directly to PDF file format. You can directly touch up the PDF files using PaperPort. The only thing I haven't been able to do is insert page numbers like Al does. It sounds like you don't even need the Automatic Document Feeder, if you are going to be doing books manually. Several hundred pages a day manually will probably wear you out, especially if you really want to do 20,000 pages (100 days?). The scanner cost $25 on eBay, but it was a gamble; a more realistic cost there is $125. PaperPort Deluxe 9 costs about $90, I think. Dave -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces(a)classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave Sent: Monday, December 15, 2003 12:09 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Cc: aek(a)spies.com Subject: RE: Sheet-feed scanners Thanks for your reply on a subject that I have an interest in :-). I have some books that I use in my work that I would like to scan (for personal use) to put on my laptop, to make it more convenient to carry around. I have about 20,000 pages that I would like to do eventually. Here is my question. I am trying to figure out what would be the cheapest way to get them scanned or to do them myself. I don't mind buying a scanner. I already have a very fast computer. So....what I would like to know is what type of scanner should I buy or rent to do the job and what software do I need. I have all the Adobe Acrobat stuff already. I called one company and they gave me an extremely high price to so the scanning for me, and insisted that I tear all the pages out of my books, so they can be fed into the auto scanner. I prefer not to do that. What I need is a fast scanner where I could do several hundred pages at a time, each day until I'm done if it will save me a ton of money. They wanted something like $.08/page. I figure that I can buy a nice scanner much cheaper than paying all that money to have my stuff scanned ($1,700.00). What would you recommend, please? Thanks, -Dave