Fax/Scanner Combo

[MitchK]

I am seeking a fast scanner/fax combo for scanning directly into Open Dental. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Dr. Mitch Klein

[bcpayne]

Brother 9970CDW is a fast scanner, and although not advertised as such, it is a duplex scanner that scans both sides in one pass.

The printing per page is fast, the only downside is it has a bit of a long time to first page as it "warms up".

The features on this printer are endless. Like any printer you don't get as many pages per cartridge as advertised, but I think it is comparable to most.

I picked up the printer for around 500, but you have to shop around online as many places sell it closer to 700.

This works well as a fax also, but on a side note, we switched to ringcentral.com for fax services and haven't looked back.

[MitchK]

Thanks bcpayne

Does it scan directly into Open Dental?
Is there a warm up time for the scanning?

Regards

Mitch

[bcpayne]

I am not sure if it scans to open dental. I havent checked for a twain driver. We have ours connected as a network printer. When we want to scan, we press the scan button on the computer, select the computer you want the pdf to be sent to, then hit start. The folder it was saved to will pop up on that computer with the file in it and you can do what you want with the pdf.
Scanning does not require any noticable warm up time. It is very fast.

[MitchK]

Thanks Again

I really need a scanner/fax that scans fast directly into OD.

Regards

MItch

[bcpayne]

Actually I just checked and there is a twain driver so you can scan directly into OD. We haven't used it that way but it is nice to know we can. I tested it once and it works well for scanning directly to OD. I am also connected to the printer through the LAN so any computer with the driver installed will be able to scan directly to OD over the network.

We don't use the 9970 that much for scanning, although it is good at it. It is much handier to have a scanner at each desk, the s50, which I don't think you could really beat with out spending hundreds more. We mostly use the 9970 as our workhorse printer, with occasional scan to email / scan to file use. For me, I wouldn't plan on using the all-in-one for everything since if it goes out, you are really down.

I said this before but you should look into ringcentral fax service... if you are trying to go as paperless as possible. Since OD can email, it makes sending faxes from the chart very easy. All you have to do is send an email to faxnumber@faxservice.com and the email subject and body makes the cover sheet and the attachments are subsequent pages. You also receive faxes as email attachments that can directly be imported to the chart. for $10 a month you can ditch a fax line and a machine.

btw it is probably more than we need, but we bought the 9970 to replace one of the stupid expensive leased copiers that are far too prevalent. Even if we bought 2-3 of the 9970's a year it would still be cheaper than a lease on a big copier!

[Hersheydmd]

I have a slightly older Brother Multifunction - the 9650CDW. I am also very happy with it.
I tried scanning directly into OD, but gave up on it. The file sizes created were several times larger than the file sizes I get when I scan directly into Paperport. So I scan to a temp folder in Paperport and then I import the .pdf into the Image folder in OD.
With Paperport you can also print any document to a virtual Paperport PDF printer, instead of printing it on paper and then scanning it in.
I highly recommend Nuance PaperPort for anyone who wants to run a paperless office. It's an excellent, cost effective "virtual filing cabinet", scanning program and PDF creator.

[Jay]

Brother 9970CDW since it can do email with secure protocols (TLS/SSL) that Gmail etc. need.

[irfan]

I couldnt stand our Brother MFC... took wayyyyy too long to get the first page printed was just slow overall. We got cheap Dell 1135n's in the office now, 5 of them... and they scan/print/fax quickly, and were $99 each.