By Graham K. Rogers

Earlier today, Xerox announced a new combined flatbed and sheetfed scanner that also has a 70-page document feeder. The Xerox DocuMate 5540 is claimed to be a highly versatile scanner that is ideally suited to the modern office environment.

Despite attempts to move to a paperless environment, this is still unattainable in most offices, so there remains a considerable amount of paper circulating. Xerox claims that the x can scan almost anything in an office and file it away securely in digital form until needed. It features,

• Custom color and multicolor dropout

• Roller-based page separation

• CCD image sensor

• Straight paper path

• Acuity image enhancement software (link to datasheet PDF)

The DocuMate 5540 is priced at $1695 but is currently only available in the USA and certain countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. He is now continuing that in the Bangkok Post supplement, Life.