Let’s scan some stuff!

Hello again! Welcome back to another Tuesday blog post! We went through some pretty wild weather last week!

Today, we’re gonna touch on a feature to your machine that is just as vital as printing: Scanning!

Your copy machine can do many things with it’s scanning features, such as:

* Making copies (Including converting a double sided print to two single side prints)
* Sending a document to a workstation
* Sending a document to someone via email
* Saving a document to removable media, such as a USB drive
* Sending a FAX

There’s also two ways you can scan things, either by using the automatic feeder, OR by using the flat glass. The flat glass scanner has one major advantage over the feeder: The ability to scan irregular sized (and shaped!) items, such as receipts, and small things such as ID cards.

Your machine comes with a DP that can scan both sides of your document. This is done all in one pass using two different scanning lasers. To the left of the flat glass on the machine, you’ll see a little strip of glass. This strip of glass is responsible for the front side of your documents.

Inside the feeder, there is a second strip of glass. This is responsible for the back side of your documents. If you start seeing odd streaks on anything fed through here, determine what side that streak is on, and clean that particular glass. (It’s highly common for the main slit glass to become dirty well before the one inside the feeder.)

Under the feeder, you have your flatbed glass. This is not unlike most home scanners in terms of form and finish. You have a large glass pane with ruler markings on the left and rear sides of it. You will notice an arrow in the top left corner between the two ruler sets. This is where you should align the corner of the document you are scanning or copying.

USING THE FEEDER: Let’s start with the most commonly used part of your machine: The feeder. The feeder can scan multiple documents all in one go, versus one at a time on the glass. If you haven’t yet, I recommend taking the time to read my other blog post about getting to know your copier. (https://www.copylady.com/get-to-know-your-copy-machine-inside-and-out-2/). I cover the parts of the feeder here.

When putting your documents in to scan or copy, You’ll want to know: “Which way is front??”. In the majority of cases, UP is the front scan. Put your documents in the feeder face UP. Make sure the guides are up tight against the paper. Having these guides out even half an inch can cause crooked scans, or worse, total jamming in the DP!

USING THE FLAT GLASS: As scary as it sounds, using the flat glass on your machine is quite simple! Simply place your document face DOWN on the glass. Be sure to align the top of your document with the top left corner of the glass. (where the arrow is).

NOTE: Unlike the feeder, which can determine the size of your document using it’s sensors, the flat bed glass will scan the document to determine the size. Often times you will get prompted to manually select a size.

WATCH OUT: If you let the scanner determine the size of the document on the flat glass, be sure the glass (and upper platen) are as clean as possible. A tiny speck makes the difference between your document coming out on it’s proper size paper, or coming out on Ledger!

CAN IT BE IN COLOR?? Of course! The vast majority of scanners today can scan in B&W, Grayscale, and even full color. This includes copiers that only print in B&W. You can scan in color off anything! (You only need a color copier if you want color copies)

WANT THE BEST COPIES? Simple! Be sure to give all of the glass (the slit glass AND the flat glass) a good cleaning every now and then. I cannot easily specify an interval to which you should do your cleanings, as this will vary on how much use the scanner gets. (If it’s used all the time, you will want to clean it more frequently versus one you would only use every once in awhile.)

THERE ARE SOME THINGS YOU CAN’T SCAN OR COPY (In color anyways): Yep, you read that right. There does exist that which cannot be copied or scanned in color. It isn’t really a huge list fortunately. You will not be able to do a color scan or copy of any document with a security feature in it (such as a hologram). These types of documents include, but are not limited to:

* Paper Currency
* Checks
* Most ID cards (Drivers License, SSN, etc)
* Official certificates (Birth, Death, etc)

Trying to scan or copy these in color can cause mixed results. You can either get a blank page spit out at you, a seemingly empty PDF file, a completely black PDF file, a completely black page spit out at you, or the machine simply locks up and requires a restart. This is a result of a feature required by the government to prevent counterfeitting. You can work around this for your purposes by scanning or copying it in black & white OR grayscale.

Is your current scanner not up to par with your needs? Let CopyLady help you! See our Latest Deals, or call us at 239-939-5383 today!