As tablets and mobile phones become more accessible and mainstream, offices are relying on these devices to share information, sparking BYOD policies – bring your own device – and more employees working remotely. In keeping with this trend, scanning technology has also evolved, allowing documents to be scanned and uploaded almost anywhere.
One device, the Doxie One Mobile Scanner, is a portable scanner can requires only batteries to operate, and weighs about one pound – making it an easy addition to a mobile office. Since users can scan documents onto a connected computer or an SD card, a computer or tablet is not actually needed at the time of a scan. The scanner can also input thicker items, such as business cards.
Another scanner sends documents straight to the cloud, even allowing users to send an email with the document from the scanner. While not portable, the Brother International Corporation Scanner also can send documents straight to a smartphone or tablet, according to GCN, an IT and technology online publication.
And, of course, there are many scanning applications made for smartphones and tablets through the device's camera. One in particular, Scanner Pro, was suggested by the online publication The Next Web for its additional scanning features. The app not only scans documents through a camera, but "auto-syncs to iCloud, mounts as an external drive to your PC or Mac, and saves scans as PDFs." The application can also send documents as a fax.
The growing number of both scanning devices and tablet and smartphones gives anyone looking to work on the go plenty of options for moving to a digital workspace. For an offices planning to go digital, document scanning services can help convert all documents – past or present.