Xerox DocuMate 3125

The Xerox DocuMate 3125 is a duplexing desktop scanner with a 50-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF). It provides one-touch scanning from 9 preset and customizable scan profiles, either from your computer or the scanner itself. Though its OCR performance was reasonably good, particularly in grayscale mode, its scanning speeds were somewhat slow, especially for searchable PDF.

With an 11.2 by 6.5 inch footprint (WD), the 3125 is reasonably compact and should easily fit on a desk; it weighs 5.1 pounds. It has a straight-through paper path, and can scan documents up to 8.5 inches wide and 38 inches long, and business cards as well as plastic cards up to 0.8 mm thick. It has an ultrasonic double-feed detection sensor to catch paper misfeeds.

To the right of the ADF is the single-character LCD that's used to display the number of the current Visioneer OneTouch scan profile (as well as error messages)?you can choose between preset and customizable, numbered scan profiles, that you can switch between with up and down arrows.

Scanning
You can initiate scans directly from the scanner, by choosing a profile and hitting either the Simplex or Duplex button below the LED, or the OneTouch interface on your computer or. You can also scan from the bundled programs (PaperPort and OmniPage); the 3125 includes Twain, WIA, and ISIS drivers, so you can also scan from nearly any program that has a scan command.

Like most document scanners, the 3125 can scan at up to 600 dpi; it can scan in black and white, grayscale, or color. The default OneTouch scanning profiles and destinations include Scan (image PDF); PDF (searchable PDF); Print (BMP); E-mail (PDF); Fax (BMP); OCR (RTF); Archive (searchable PDF, 300 dpi); Business Card (BMP); and Paint (BMP). It can scan to PDF, searchable PDF, JPEG, TIFF, and BMP formats; it can also scan to RTF and other document formats if you install either the included PaperPort or OmniPage Pro.

Software
Software includes Visioneer OneTouch, Nuance PaperPort for document management, Nuance OmniPage Pro 17 for OCR. ?Although it can scan business cards, it doesn't have a business card management program, so if you want to use the 3125 for business card scanning and management, you'll have to supply your own software.

Speed
The DocuMate 3125 has a rated speed of 25 pages per minute (ppm) for simplex scanning and 44 images per minute (ipm) where each side of a page counts as one image. In speed testing using the OneTouch default settings (image PDF, black and white, 200 dpi), the 3125 was a bit short of that, tallying 21.4 ppm simplex and 30 ipm for duplex. The Editors' Choice Canon imageFormula DR-C125, rated at 25 ppm and 50 ipm for simplex and duplex scanning, matched its rated speeds: We clocked it at 25.4 ppm simplex and 50 ipm duplex. The Kodak i2400, rated at 30 ppm simplex and 60 ipm duplex, tested at 28.3 ppm in simplex and 53 ipm in duplex.

The 3125 has two default searchable PDF scan destinations in OneTouch: PDF (200 ppi black and white) and Archive (300 dpi black and white). (The Image PDF setting is simply called Scan.) Its speed for scanning in simplex at 300 ppi (3:28) was actually somewhat faster than at 200 ppi (3:52), though that was reversed in duplex scanning, with it averaging 8:08 in simplex and 8:22 in duplex. When I switched to grayscale mode for 200 ppi simplex scanning, it was a bit faster, taking 3:15. But regardless of the resolution and mode, it is sluggish for a scanner at its price and speed rating in scanning to searchable PDF.

When we tested it last year, the Editors' Choice Canon imageFormula DR-C125 was particularly impressive as it didn't slow down at all when scanning to sPDF (searchable PDF) format, which is generally the preferred format for document management applications. We clocked the Canon at a minute flat in scanning our 25-page test document in both simplex and duplex modes. The Kodak i2400 took 1:34 to scan our test document in simplex to searchable PDF.

OCR
In scanning to OCR using the default OneTouch OCR setting (black and white, 300 ppi RTF format), quality was somewhat inconsistent. With our Arial test font, it was perfect at reading 5-point type, but had at least one error in several larger sizes up to 12 point. With Times New Roman it was perfect at 8 point, with 1 error in both 10 and 12 points.

I also tried scanning to OCR in grayscale mode (at 300 ppi), and there it did reasonably well. In Times New Roman, it was perfect down to 8 points, with a single mistake at 6 points. With the Arial font, although it read 8-point type perfectly, it had one mistake at 12 points, one at 10 points, and one at 6 points. It did a relatively good job with most of our nonstandard text fonts.

The Xerox DocuMate 3125 is a reasonable choice for a desktop business scanner at its price, if you don't need to scan to searchable PDF format. It offers duplex scanning and a 50-sheet ADF. You can choose any of 9 programmable scan profiles using arrow buttons for one-touch scanning. Its OCR performance is reasonably good, particularly in grayscale mode. The 3125 lacks a business card management program, so if you want to scan business cards with it, you should either already have such a program or be ready to buy one (and factor that into your cost). ?

Its scan speed at default settings was a bit below its rated speed, in both simplex and?especially?duplex. It slowed down greatly at scanning to searchable PDF, taking more than 4 times as long as the Editors' Choice Canon DR-C125 for simplex scanning, and more than 8 times as long for duplex. If you scan to searchable PDF, there are much faster choices than the Xerox DocuMate 3125, but otherwise it's a pretty typical scanner for its price, though it doesn't offer anything to make it stand out from the pack.

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