Instead of having your files stored locally on the attached computer, you can have them uploaded to DropBox, SharePoint, Google Drive, Evernote, and FileBound. Connectivityīoth printers have the ability to be connected to a number of cloud based services. But for standard white-background documents, we didn’t have any trouble. This could be a problem if you’re editing documents with a high level of graphic design, such as pamphlets. We found that when scanning documents containing both text and graphics, the spacing was slightly adjusted to make the document easier to use. The scanner also supports excel files, as well as Word documents.
The spacing, color, backgrounds, and many other details are all preserved and highly accurate.īut if you’re going to be editing the files a lot, PDF just won’t do.
PDF files are universally accepted, and they are the most ‘true to the original’ of any file type. For archival purposes, we preferred to use PDF files. Since the main appeal of this scanner is that it converts paper documents to accurate, editable digital files, it’s important that it supports a variety of file types. But the hopper is adjustable, so you can easily feed smaller documents such as business cards or photos. You can scan up to 50 pages of standard paper at a time. There is also a mixed option, which allows for part of the document to be converted to text, while graphics are scanned and left in place. With the text setting, the scanner will use OCR (optical character recognition) to convert the document to an editable document. For photos or graphic heavy documents, the photo setting produces the most accurate color. The one thing we did find ourselves playing around with a lot was image type. But for the most part, we found that these features worked best on automatic mode. You can choose options like auto rotation, document size, and resolution. Once we had a general idea of how the scanner worked, we spent a little time playing around with the options. In the event you were scanning only a single side, you wouldn’t see any speed improvement. This can be done since there are actually two optical sensors on each side of the page. But when you consider that this scanner does both sides of a page at the same time, it’s clearly one of the fastest models on the market. The scanner is rated for 35 pages per minute, and we found this metric to be accurate. It took about 1.5 seconds to scan a page, and there was a brief delay from the time one was spat out and the next scan started. To our surprise, scanning was extremely fast. We slid a couple documents into the paper tray, and simply pressed the scan button to see how it performed.
It took only a few minutes to install, and the software gave us several quick explanations of how to use the features while we waited.Īfter installation, we opened up the Epson Document Capture PRO (known simply as Document Capture on OSX) and was given an interface with which to access all of the scanners features.ĭocument Capture Pro simplified the process of scanning, while still giving us access to a number of important features.
We used the included disk (although you can download the files online if you don’t have a CD drive in your computer) to install Epson’s software package.
Windows 10 recognized the scanner immediately, and after waiting a few moments for the drivers to install we were able to successfully scan a test page to our desktop, using Windows built-in scanning wizard.īut at this point, several key features of the scanner were not working. From there, we were able to plug it into the power source and our laptop.
We flipped the lid open, and peeled off several plastic packaging components that were designed to protect the scanner while in transit. After unpacking, we had a power cord, USB cable, and the scanner itself. Getting the ES series document scanners up and running was a simple process.
The three biggest selling points are it’s speed, full duplex scanning, and connectivity features. Documents are fed into the hopper at the top, and are scanned one by one. Instead, they operate much more like a printer. Despite being scanners, they’re much different from your typical flatbed scanners. But is this something that should be used by the average consumer, or overkill for most? We decided to go hands on to find out.īoth the ES-400 and ES-500W are similar in design, with the primary difference between them being their ability to communicate wirelessly. Epson’s WorkForce ES-400 and 500W documents scanners are top of the line devices, produced to show consumers just what one of these handy little tools can do. It can be hard to tell which style suits your own individual needs.