Scanners

With digital cameras more affordable, many people are doing away with their scanners.  Don’t toss that equipment yet.  Depending on the software you are using, a scanner can save you a lot of time.  OCR (Optical Character Recognition) can save you a lot of typing.  These applications specialize in taking a text image such as a scan of a typewritten letter, and converting it from a collection of pixels back into text that can be edited in a word processor such as Microsoft Word.  Many of the leading manufacturers bundle  OmniPage Limited Edition, which is a cut-down entry level OCR program.  

It's only fair to say that when all is said and done, a scanner is only a scanner - a piece of hardware.  It's the software that comes bundled with the scanner that you will mostly have to deal with - that is what will determine it's functionality for you.  I've had great scanners with poor software, and budget scanners with excellent software.  I would choose the second option any day!