How are you going to get little Jimmy's crayon drawing for Grandma all the way from the fridge to across the country in mere seconds? Scan it and you're on your way! Scanning used to be a specialized function performed most often by those in the graphic arts and desktop publishing industries. But dropping prices and the popularity of e-mail have boosted scanner sales for the home through the roof. There's no need to mail or fax anymore -- anything can be quickly transformed into a digitized image and sent along to anxiously waiting grandparents --- or clients, for that matter.

Scanners fall into the category of computer peripherals, and every computer store usually keeps at least a few scanner models in stock. For a big selection of scanners, try Onvia, where you can buy scanners from $59.98 all the way up to over $2,500. The Onvia site has an interesting mechanism called "request for quote," which lets you list the features you want and the price you'd like to pay. The quote is then sent to all the suppliers, who will reply to your request with their prices. Future Shop is an excellent source for any type of computer peripheral, and has a good selection of scanners. If you buy something from Future Shop online and change your mind, it can be returned to any of their "bricks and mortar" locations. Acer, Agfa, Artek, Canon, Epson and Hewlett Packard are some of the brand name scanners you might want to consider looking at. For comparison shopping, try Computers Plus Online, Insight and the Micro Warehouse. Canada Computes http://www.canadacomputes.com/ and the American publisher of "PC Magazine" http://www.zdnet.com/ are great sites to visit before you buy, for reviews on various types of scanners.

You can scan anything you want

A scanner captures images from photographic prints, posters, magazine pages and many other sources, and digitizes them for computer editing and display. Sometimes when buying an entire computer system, a scanner is included in the package. The performance of these scanners varies, and you should evaluate each using the same criteria you would use when buying a stand-alone scanner: sheet-fed or flatbed, resolution (dpi), colour or black/white, speed, and the communicator or port.

There are two main types of scanners for home office purposes -- flatbed and sheet-fed. The main difference between these scanners is how and what they scan. Flatbeds are the most popular. Not surprisingly, the flatbed scanner has a flat surface upon which material is placed for scanning. An image sensor moves across the material in order to scan it. Flatbeds are convenient for scanning 3-D objects such as books, can be very compact and can scan a range of sizes. Flatbeds can usually handle reflective and transparent (but not see-through) material.

A sheet-fed scanner is strictly for reflective material, and feeds the sheets through the scanner, past the image sensor. Sheet-fed scanners are very compact and good if you need to scan documents only. But keep in mind that these scanners will not work on anything that isn't a single page, such as magazines or books. This may mean a trip to the photocopier before you can scan. Of course, you can avoid the whole photocopier-scanner-fax redundancy problem by buying an all-in-one home office machine.

Resolution is measured by dpi (dots per inch). A scanner with higher dpi will produce better digital images. And with any scanner, always consider the type of material it can handle. Scanners come in black/white or colour, with colour being the more expensive option. As with any home office equipment, think about what your needs are before deciding on which features are worth paying for.

It's only as good as the software

Scanners usually come with software that lets you resize and otherwise modify a captured image. Manufacturers are improving the software for scanners, making it easier to use and more compatible with other programs. "Scanners today are generally easy to use, but consumers do not want to fuss with setting the software for specific applications," says John Phillips, product manager at Agfa.

An example of the new scanning software is Agfa's ScanWise. ScanWise automatically formats images or text for e-mail, word processing, optical character recognition, web pages and imaging applications. "You scan your child's drawing and get a beautiful image, but if you don't scan it in the right colour mode and resolution for e-mail, it could take a recipient 40 minutes to download it," Phillips explained. He says the new scanners allow consumers to communicate in pictures, especially when using e-mail. "Sending text via e-mail was the first step," Phillips says. "Now it's time to give consumers the tools to add images and bring electronic communications to the next level."

Watch your port

Some scanners are compatible with both PC and Mac, and others might only work in a Mac environment. Although more scanners are being developed with dual capability, make sure when you buy one that the computer you have can support the scanner you choose. That means making sure the communicator or port and the software are compatible with the equipment you already have. Of course, if you buy the scanner with your computer, this will be a given.

Glossary

Colour bit depth indicates how many bits (a bit is a unit of storage for computers) are used to record the colour. The rule is: the more bits used to store a colour, the more colours that can be stored.

OCR refers to optical character recognition --- software that makes it possible to scan pages of printed material and convert them to text.

SCSI stands for small computer system interface and is pronounced "Scuzzy." It transfers data faster than parallel ports, and is especially good for scans of high resolution and bit depth.

Quirks

Do something cool with your scanned pictures. In Media http://www.inmediapresents.com/ has software specially designed to create slide shows and presentations with music, sound effects and neat transitions using scanned images. With Sights and Sounds Plus, instead of e-mailing a static image to your friends and family, you can send them an entire show of any event.