The Xerox DocuMate 510 Scanner is a compact and effective hi-speed scanner perfect for workgroups and other decentralized scanning applications. By eliminating seldom used options such as duplex capability and a SCSI interface, Xerox offers this model at a price that enables businesses to achieve high levels of productivity by distributing fast cost-effective scanners throughout the organization.

Main Features

Couple items to note:

1. The unit does not come with the PaperPort Pro 9 office as advertised by Amazon. It is bundled with the Deluxe 9 software which is a less costly product.

2. The flat bed scanning of photos is not up to my expectations. It is probably ok if you're scanning photos for commercial / non-artistic reasons. I do not believe that this takes the place of a 'decent' photo scanner. I had planned to compromise on getting shorted on the Pro 9 Office software and keep this scanner. However I decided that it was not worth it given the compromise that I would also have to accept in the photo scanning.

3. The ADF always pulls slightly to the left as the pages go through. I don't know if this is a typical problem on other ADFs or not.

4. The instructions for the software both hard copy and on the web site are not thorough. A lot of trial and error is required in order to better understand the scanner options.

5. I don't like the fact that the Deluxe 9 software provides the 'preview' scan in a small sub-window. The window is too small to get any valuable 'preview' info.

6. A positive item is that Xerox has spare parts available for the ADF and scanner which may need replacing. I don't believe that this is typical for other non-commercial consumer type units.


GREAT Buy for My Office and Home Office   May 11, 2004
 27 out of 31 found this review helpful

DEC. 2008 UPDATE: I have bought 8 of them so far for various offices and have had zero problems with them.
DEC. 2006 UPDATE: I have bought 4 of these to date, without any hitches at all! Nice!!
The scanner does a fine job. There are many options to control file size and scan quality. The interface took a little getting used to, but after a couple of days I was a "whiz".

PLUSES:
I like the fact that it scans directly to PDF format. I especially like the "Scan Manager" that allows you to preview, reorder, and add pages to an ongoing scan. For example, if you finish scanning a document and want to add a forgotten page to the same file, you can do so in the Scan Manager. You can even re-order the forgotten page to its proper place in the PDF file. This feature would also be useful if you had a 200-page document to scan since the ADF cannot hold 200 pages at once. The machine also comes with a spare ADF "roller", which is supposed to need replacing after 20,000 documents.

I had some trouble with pages that had been stapled, but I was able to correct my problem by flat rolling the staple holes to make it feed properly. This was more user-error than the machine's fault. In fact, I scanned an unstapled 50 page document without a hitch.

I will buy this same machine as the demand for it grows at my office.



DocuMate 510 is Horrible   November 10, 2004
 20 out of 20 found this review helpful

This scanner is absolutely terrible. I have a small home business and I want to go paperless. If you are in the middle of a scan job, say you are on the 30th page already, and something is wrong, there is no recovery feature so you have to start from scratch. In fact, tech support says you will get constant errors if you scan more than 20 pages at a time, yet the document feeder is supposed to hold 50 pages (?). You can scan and then merge multiple scans to become one, but that is not the point. The point is that out of 900 pages of scanning, i got about two dozen errors which requires me to shut off the machine, close the scanning program and start all over again. I returned the product and got another documate 510 because tech support said it must be faulty, but the second is exactly the same. This scanner is nothing but a pain in the rear. I am shipping the second one back in the morning.


Horrible Scanner   March 22, 2006
 17 out of 18 found this review helpful

After having so much trouble with HP scanners, I decided to try another company alltogether and go with Xerox. I needed a scanner capable of handling large amounts of paper 30-50 sheets at a time, was quick, and most importantly, worked. Unfortunately, 2 out of 3 doesn't cut it.

This scanner is very fast. It takes about 5 seconds to feed a sheet of paper. It can also handle a lot of paper at a time. Those are the only things it has going for it. If you notice from the picture, the auto document feeder is at a ridiculously sharp angle. It almost points straight up, which makes it awkward to load paper into it if you're sitting down and less than 6 feet tall. My employees that use this always have to stand up to insert the paper because it's easier that way. The feeder tray isn't very long either so you actually have to hold the paper and use your hand as a guide if you use more than a few sheets of legal-sized paper in it.

Without a doubt, the biggest problem with this scanner is that it is incompatible with Adobe Acrobat 6. It refuses to work with it. I don't know if this is Adobe or the scanner's fault but don't get this scanner if you want to use both. Acrobat 6 refuses to locate this scanner. I have a degree in computer science, spent about 6 hours searching for a fix on the Internet, and still couldn't resolve this. The only way to get around it is to either use a different version of Acrobat (I ended up having to pay $400 for Acrobat), or use the scanning software that comes with it. The scanning software included is okay, but is like most software in that it's bloated and has a lot of junk I didn't need. All I want is a simple TWAIN driver, which is not included. I don't need 50 mb of software and drivers, and four different programs to do simple image scanning.

Stay away from the Xerox Documate if you have an interest in scanning to PDF. It's not even made by Xerox, but by a company called Visioneer, who then sells it under the Xerox brand.