Separate scanning device?

[csziggy]

3. I have several scanners

A thin, lightweight Canon LIDE 600F scanner that is my go to scanner for documents and quick photo scanning; an Epson V500 Photo scanner for better quality photo scanning and medium format negatives; and a Plustek film/slide scanner for 35 mm negatives and slides.

I prefer the Canon for document scanning since it's scan-to-PDF function does excellent OCR (optical character reading) and I can get more cut and paste capability. The Epson I have does not do any OCR - when it scans documents to PDF, they are just pictures of the document - useless for practical purposes. My sister has the next model of that Epson, the V550, and it does OCR the scans to PDF but not as well as the Canon.

The Canon is great for carrying around - it's about the same size as a laptop, fits in our laptop bag and uses only a USB connection, so no power cord required. The Epson is three times as thick and needs a transformer for power.

A film/negative scanner is a specialty device, only useful if you really want to scan a lot of transparencies and spend the time doing it. Both my Canon and Epson scanners can scan 35 mm negatives and slides, but the dedicated scanner does a better job and is faster.