Office & Productivity · Document Scanners
Sheet-fed ADF or flatbed — which document scanner should I buy?
Reviewer consensus
If your goal is digitizing paper at volume (statements, receipts, contracts, paperless-office workflows), a duplex sheet-fed ADF model like the Fujitsu/Ricoh ScanSnap or Epson WorkForce ES-400 II is the consensus pick. Flatbeds such as the Canon CanoScan LiDE remain better for fragile photos, books, and artwork where you can't run pages through a feeder. Specialist threads on r/DataHoarder repeatedly warn against using sheet-fed scanners for photo archival.