Large Format Scanners

With the growth of digital storage and transmission of both advertorial and technical documents, large format scanners have become increasingly important to architects, engineers, and advertising companies alike. Faced with providing storage for and reproduction of archived blueprints, computer aided drafting (CAD) documents, and even posters or banner advertisements, these professional are increasingly turning to large format technology to preserve and reproduce their intellectual property.

Gone are the days of storing past architectural designs, advertising campaigns, or other creative work on perishable media like paper, vellum, or even plastic. Not only are these medium subject to water, fire, and general age related damage, they also take considerable storage and cataloging to archive. Even with the large format copiers that make reproduction of these assets possible, maintaining them for future reproduction and/or editing remained problematic until the advent of large format scanners.

With their wide format capacity, these sheet or roll fed scanners can accommodate very large documents like blueprints, architectural plans, photographic prints, posters, or nearly any other printed media up to several feet in height and width. After they've been scanned in, these documents can then be preserved for future printing, editing, or re-purposing in future projects. Not only does this save the storage space and logistical headaches involved in tracking these documents, it makes your company assets readily and instantly available to remote teams across the country or even around the world.

Companies like Oce, Xerox, and HP produce these large format scanners for both small business and more industrial uses. Varying in their feed type (roll, sheet, or flat), document size capacity, and scanning speed, a quick look around the internet is sure to provide several options that will meet your scanning needs. Despite the considerable size of most large format scanners, free shipping is often available from online retailers or manufacturers. The market for these wide format devices and their associated supplies is competitive enough that these websites aren't going to take the chance that you'll go to a local office supply or specialty store to purchase just to avoid the shipping fee.