What is Reddit's opinion of Epson WorkForce ES-400 Color Duplex Document Scanner for PC and Mac, Auto Document Feeder (ADF)?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

1.) buy a high quality document scanner from best buy/Amazon. I have used this for years.

2.) scan textbook in under an hour

3.) organize textbook in PDF program of your choice

4.) return scanner for not meeting your speed requirements

5.) ???

6.) profit

ProTip: works great for unbinding books as well. Hypothetically, a few students could go in and buy one expensive book at like $10/each and then all have the pdf.

I replaced mine with the Epson WorkForce ES-400 Color Duplex Document Scanner for PC and Mac, Auto Document Feeder (ADF). Around $280.

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https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M4NANZ6/ref=ppx\_yo\_dt\_b\_search\_asin\_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I recently bought a used HP Proliant micro server running Mayan EDMS and an Epson document scanner feeding it via FTP. I now scan all my incoming mail (bills, receipts, schedules). I have also been digitizing all my old tax records and things that we "might need someday" in our filing cabinets.

I estimate that I've digitized about 85 lbs of paper so far. It's nice to see all that paper go away.

I have an older standalone license of Adobe Acrobat XI (long out of support, but still rock-solid!). I can merge, rotate, and OCR scanned documents with it. There are a variety of options these days, however (Nitro, Foxit, etc.).

As far as hardware goes, I have a high-speed Epson Workforce standalone scanner (new ones go for $250 to $300 on Amazon). If you don't do a ton of documents on a regular basis & don't need the super-high-speed scanning feature, then just get a basic $99 AIO unit with an ADF on top. If you do get an Epson, it comes with Nuance OCR software: ($249)

• https://www.amazon.com/Epson-WorkForce-ES-400-Document-Scanner/dp/B01M4NANZ6/

I don't like annoying hassles in my workflow, so having a fast, high-quality scanner with an easy piece of software to do the PDF conversion is critical to me actually using it every day. My process is:

1. Scan into my computer
2. Format as required (OCR, merge, rotate) & save with the appropriate file name
3. Stick in the correct folder in my Google Drive (Backup & Sync lets you save it directly into a folder on your desktop & then auto-uploads to the cloud)

I have 2FA (authenticator app for security, not SMS) setup on my Gmail account for security. I use Backblaze for online secure backup ($6/mo for unlimited storage). This all results in the following:

1. I have a digital record of my documents in PDF format
2. I can search inside of it, thanks to OCR
3. I can view it across all devices
4. My computer has the original copy of the PDF
5. My 2FA-protected Google account syncs it to the cloud, which I can check from any browser or my smartphone
6. Backblaze backs up my files (gDrive cloud sync is not backup, because if you delete it on your desktop or Google Drive, then it's just gone on all platforms)

General stuff goes in my general Reference folder, project-related stuff goes in the specific project folder, and so on. I keep very little paper in my life, mostly just what I can fit in my fireproof go-bag. With email, e-fax, digital bill pay, etc., there's not really any reason to keep much in the way of paper anymore.

Oh, I also have a PDF photo app on my phone. Two good ones are JotNot & Office Lens. You can snap a picture of a document, clean it up, convert it to PDF, and email it to yourself for processing into your system later. If you want to get super-serious about it, ABBYY has an excellent PDF OCR app for mobile, as well as a business card scanner. The combo is $75 on the iOS app store, which is pretty pricey, but if you'd use it, then it's worth it!