Epson DS-770 Document Scanner: 45 ppm, TWAIN & ISIS Drivers, 3-Year Warranty with Next Business Day Replacement

I had the predecessor to this scanner for years and it served faithfully. I scan and shred ALL paper in my home office and these scanners just chug right along. Biggest problem is they can scan faster than Adobe Acrobat can digest. Biting the $650 bullet to step up to this speed demon was well worth the price. Drop a stack of paper in, hit the button, and stand back - but not too far. The only problem with this scanner is if you are scanning a large stack and a paper gets in the way of ejecting scans - which can happen with paper that is folded or wrinkled - the scanner will detect a jam and stop. I make a habit of removing every 10 or so pages (about every 10 seconds) from the paper catcher so this will not happen. And remember - 10 pages in about 10 seconds is scanning BOTH sides at once so you are scanning 20 pages of content! This is the sports car of scanners with a price to match - and worth it if you do a lot of scanning or hate to spend any time at all scanning.

Epson has a newish (2017) series of three duplex scanners directed at small businesses, and they can serve home users well too. They share a small footprint, good-but-not-top speed, broad OCR (scan to editable text) compatibility via TWAIN and ISIS, and a three-year warranty with next-business-day replacement. Their main capabilities are very similar except for the points I'll mention below.575W, currently $400The DS-575W is a lot cheaper than the other two, but it's still capable. It will scan 35 pages per minute, as opposed to 45 for the other two. It handles half as much at a time in its automatic document feeder, 50 sheets vs 100. Its maximum duty cycle is 4000 sheets a day as opposed to 5000 for the other two.On the other hand, it has wifi, which the other two lack.The wifi doesn't allow networking, i.e. simultaneous use by more than one remote user. To add that with the 575W you need the expensive optional Network Interface Unit, which I'll say a bit more about below.780N, currently $800If you want networking built in, the DS-780N is the one with that. The network is via ethernet, not wireless. It's currently about $100 more than the 575W plus the networking unit, but it's also more compact and more efficient than that combination, with the 45-page-per-minute speed and 100-page auto-feeder. And it's probably more a little more robust to support the higher duty cycle.The 780N is the only one of the three with a touch screen for more complete control at the machine.770, currently $700+The one I have, the 770, doesn't have the networking or the touch screen, but it's otherwise very much like the 780N. A little cheaper, up to $100 less currently. I could probably get by with the 575W, and get the wifi connection that way.You can add networking to the 770 with the networking unit, but it's a lot cheaper to get the 780N if you want networking.Network Interface Unit, currently $280+The Epson Network Interface Unit adds ethernet networking to the 575W or 770. It also adds a screen for operating the scanner from the interface unit, which is nice. Epson gives conflicting indications, but it appears this device is for Windows only. (The Amazon and Epson pages for the networking unit don't say that it's compatible with the 575W and 770, but it is.)Paper sizeThese scanners can handle a wide variety of paper, as long as it's at least 2 x 2" but not wider than 8-1/2" and not thicker than a typical business card--12 point they say, though thicker can work in my experience. (In fact, they specify you can do some kinds of plastic cards up to 50 point. I haven't tried that.) You can feed in a long receipt or adding machine tape up to 240". The machine adjusts the angle of the paper automatically as needed. It does envelopes fine. It handles regular paper that's been unfolded. (No staples or clips, of course.)Carrier sheetsIf you scan very thin or fragile paper, especially if it isn't flat, you might have trouble. You may have to feed it one page at a time by hand or, better, use an Epson carrier sheet, which covers and protects the paper while it's scanned. The carrier sheets are currently an additional cost of about $45 for a set of five, but if you're scanning much fragile stuff, they're worth it.Photos, etcThese scanners aren't designed for photos, but they do scan them beautifully just the same. Officially you should use a carrier sheet or risk damage to your photos. That goes even more for any artwork or valuable prints you might want to copy: get some carrier sheets or even better a flatbed scanner if you're going to be doing much with those.OCRThis comes with some decent free OCR (optical character recognition) software, ABBYY FineReader Sprint, good enough for occasional use. If you're going to use this a lot for OCR, though, plan on paying for better software. It's worth it not to have to check as much for errors and repair them.Mac notesEpson has increased its Mac support over the last few years, but it still has limits. I haven't updated to High Sierra yet, and Epson won't tell me if there are issues with it, but they haven't updated their software for it yet. For now it's a chance you take if you're running High Sierra.With Sierra it does fine, with only a few limitations compared to Windows. The main Epson scanning software for Mac won't save scans directly as Word, Excel or Powerpoint files, but there are other ways to make those files from the pdfs.As noted above, the optional Network Interface Unit appears to work only with Windows, so you can't network the 575W or 770 with MacOS. You can with the 780N.WarrantyThe way the warranty works is that if your printer stops working, you call Epson and they try to get it to work by advising you over the phone. If they can't fix it that way, they take your credit card number and send you a replacement that's supposed to arrive the next business day. The credit card number is to make sure you send back the defective one, which they'll charge you for if you don't. My understanding is you pay the return shipping.

We finally got around to scanning all our documents. This was after years of over-stuffing a four drawer file cabinet and also having huge piles of paper on top of said file cabinet, more piles on the floor of our office and boxes of papers stashed in the garage and in a storage shed. Scanning a huge quantity of paper simply is not feasible with a regular printer/scanner but can be done reasonably quickly with a dedicated scanner like this. Compared with your typical all-in-one printer/scanner/fax, what you get in the way of functionality and ease of setup is a little disappointing. Basically, I have come to expect wireless and fax capabilities as more or less standard (i.e. cheap enough that just about EVERY printer has it). Not with this scanner! Unless you pay significantly more, you hardwire this in through the USB port. I also found it kinda cheap that you have to pay extra for a few carrier sheets. Long-term, I have not found Epson's document feeders to be all that durable - at least not on their regular printer/scanners. I hope this one proves to be more durable - at least Epson does provide a quick replacement warranty service.

I bought this to use during tax season. Yesterday was my first full day of client appointments and it literally jammed when I attempted to scan docs during each appointment! Incredibly frustrating. I called Epson today and they told me I would need to use "slow mode" in order to scan multiple pages of varying sizes... totally useless. Why did I spend $700+ for a fast scanner that can only be used in slow mode? This item is going back today. Do not buy this unless you're planning to scan docs that are exactly the same size.

I love Epson products because they continue to upgrade their software to account for operating system changes. Many printer and scanner manufacturers seem to move on from the model that you purchased and leave you hanging out to dry. The most important thing to do BEFORE you install (especially if you are using a 3rd party firewall product - mine is AVG), it to turn it off before you run the software install. I did not do this and AVG didn't give me any warning messages, it simply blocked the scanner software from checking the internet for firmware updates and from installation. Once I turned off AVG, the process went smoothly and I was scanning in no time. The scanner is QUIET and the Scanner Pro 2 software is easy to use from the Windows tray with a right-click.

very good!

This Scanner doesn't work properly on Windows 11. It always stops working. More often, reinstallation of software is required. Not at all recommended for purchase