[sane-devel] Flatbed scanner that can scan to the edge?

[Felix E. Klee]

At Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:35:17 +0100,
Rene Rebe wrote:
> This Avision scanners are flatbad scanners with the zero edge
> "feauture" specifically to scan book.

That's great, but I don't need that.

> > As far as I know, there are scanners in the sub 100 EUR range,
> > perhaps even in the sub 50 EUR range, that can do this.  I just
> > don't know which ones.
> 
> Well, buying the most cheap "crap" does not necessarily mean
> supporting the companies that support Linux and co -- just a thought.

I don't think that a modern scanner priced around 100 EUR is necessarily
crap.  It all depends on usage scenario.  If the scanner is simple to
use, then I'd use it somewhere around once a week to scan maybe 10 pages
on average.  I'd mostly scan documents that my sheet fed scanner doesn't
accept.

> > If I do not find such a scanner, I may have to build a stencil that
> > I can put on my current scanner.  Actually, this should not be too
> > hard.  I'm annoyed however, that this step is necessary.  Why didn't
> > Epson make the visible glass plate simply a bit smaller?
> 
> Maybe some company has a patent on "zero edge" scanners?

I doubt that what I need is patented.  I think you still misunderstand
me.  With the Epson 3490, the problem that I mentioned is not limited to
scanning books.  It affects all kinds of documents.  Already scanning an
A4 sized page is a pain: One has to position it freely in the middle of
the glass plate.  The problem is that the scanner isn't capable to scan
the entire area of the visible glass plate: it cannot scan to the edge
of the plate.  This is weird, but it's the truth - I'm not the first
person to encounter this problem.  If there would be a photo copier that
had this problem, then close to nobody would buy it.  But with scanners
people seem to be less picky, as long as they're "good" at scanning
photos.

-- 
Felix E. Klee