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A device that can read text or illustrations printed on paper and translate the information into a form the computer can use. A scanner works by digitizing an image -- dividing it into a grid of boxes and representing each box with either a zero or a one, depending on whether the box is filled in. (For color and gray scaling, the same principle applies, but each box is then represented by up to 24 bits.) The resulting matrix of bits, called a bit map, can then be stored in a file, displayed on a screen, and manipulated by programs.
Optical scanners do not distinguish text from illustrations; they represent all images as bit maps. Therefore, you cannot directly edit text that has been scanned. To edit text read by an optical scanner, you need an optical character recognition (OCR ) system to translate the image into ASCII characters. Most optical scanners sold today come with OCR packages. Scanners differ from one another in the following respects:
Larger scanners include machines into which you can feed sheets of paper. These are called sheet-fed scanners. Sheet-fed scanners are excellent for loose sheets of paper, but they are unable to handle bound documents. A second type of large scanner, called a flatbed scanner, is like a photocopy machine. It consists of a board on which you lay books, magazines, and other documents that you want to scan. Overhead scanners (also called copyboard scanners) look somewhat like overhead projectors. You place documents face-up on a scanning bed, and a small overhead tower moves across the page.
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