The history of the office scanner

Used for digitising documents, streamlining services and preserving information for the future, nowadays you’ll find a document scanner in every office around the world. But what is the history of the office scanner. When was the scanner created and how has it evolved over the years?

Creating the scanner

The starting point of the modern day scanner – the Pantelegraph – is thought to have been created all the way back in the 1860s by Giovanni Caselli. Pantelegraph technology used electromagnets to scan and reproduce images which were then transmitted over telegraph lines. Building on Caselli’s scanning technology, in 1913, Edouard Belin created the Belinographe, which scanned images using a photocell and, again, transmitted them over telephone lines. 

The evolution of the scanner

In the 1920s, Western Union set about to evolve Belinograph technology, adding a rotating drum with an attached photo detector to each scanner. This drum scanner was the first scanner developed for use with a computer. The newspaper industry used various evolutions of this model from the 1920s all the way through to the 1990s – which is when flatbed scanners became widely available. To this day, flatbed scanners are one of the most commonly used scanners in homes and offices across the globe as they are ideal for scanning loose paper and far cheaper to produce than drum scanners. Converting optically scanned images, texts and objects into digital images – flatbed scanners now have the ability to produce copies of up to 5400 pixels per inch.

Scanning technology today

Before digital cameras arrived on the scene, scanners were often used in households too, to scan photos for storage on a PC or to share with friends via email. Hand-held scanners, 3D scanners and smartphone scanners are also widely available today – making scanning more accessible and instant than ever before. Flatbed scanners are still hugely useful in the office environment – particularly when it comes to document scanning. 

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