The Panasonic KV-S5055C is a sheet-fed scanner that can scan documents at up to tabloid (11 by 17 inches) size. It sports a 200-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) and blistering rated scan speeds. Although it fell a little short of its rated speeds, it's still plenty fast, and is relatively fast at scanning to searchable PDF, generally the preferred format for document management.

With an 18.5- by 17.5-inch (HWD) footprint, the KV-S5055C isn't small, but it is dwarfed by the Epson WorkForce DS-60000 Document Scanner (25.2 by 18.5 inches) and the Xerox DocuMate 4830 (22.9 by 19.6), the other two document scanners we've tested that can handle tabloid-sized paper in their ADFs. That's because both the DS-60000 and the 1830 add a flatbed for scanning books and delicate documents a page at a time.

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The KV-S5055C is built for high-volume scanning, with a maximum daily duty cycle of up to 15,000 pages. As is typical of document scanners, the KV-S5055C scans at up to 600 ppi. It offers automatic double-feed detection, prevention, and skip. Paper is loaded into the 200-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF). The ADF can hold documents from tabloid size down to business cards. It has an extendable output tray. Connectivity is via USB 2.0 cable. With the optional Panasonic KV-SS1100 ($1,549 list) network appliance, which has a 7-inch screen, the scanner can be added to a wired or wireless network.

Software
As is true of many higher-end document scanners, the KV-S5055C ships with minimal software, as IT departments often want to integrate the scanner with their preferred document management software. Software includes Panasonic Image Capture Plus utility, which lets you scan and save documents to different formats, as well as Twain and ISIS drivers, which enable you to initiate scans from nearly any Windows program with a scan command. (This scanner does not support Mac OS X.) If your business doesn't already have suitable document management or business card software, you'll need to factor in the cost of those as well.

Scanning Speed
For most functions, scanning with Image Capture Plus is a two-step process; when the scanning itself is complete, you initiate the output, in which it converts the scan into the desired format. I tested the KV-S5055C, which is rated at 50 pages per minute (ppm) for simplex scanning and 100 ipm (images per minute, where each side of a page counts as one image) for duplex at its default 300 ppi black-and-white, to image PDF, with Image Capture Plus. It averaged 43 ppm in simplex and lost no time when I switched to duplex; I clocked it at 43 ppm/86 ipm, 86% of its rated speed for each. It's rated at 75 ppm/150 ipm for scanning to image PDF at 200 ppi, and at that resolution it tested at 56 ppm in simplex, 75% of its rated speed.

Though our timed speeds didn't match Panasonic's claimed speeds, they're still within a reasonable range. Note that in our scanning speed tests, we time the scan from the launch of the scan until the scanned file is saved, while manufacturers tend to use just the time spent in the scanning itself for their rated speeds.

I timed the Epson WorkForce DS-60000 at 31 ppm in simplex and 62 ppm in duplex in scanning our test document to image PDF at its default 200 ppi in black and white, in each case about 75% of its rated speed (40 ppm/80 ipm). The Xerox DocuMate 4830, rated for scanning to image PDF at 200 ppi in black and white at 30 ppm for simplex and 60 ipm for duplex scanning, tested at 25 ppm and 51.7 ppm; 80% and 86% of its rated speed, respectively.

The KV-S5055C scanned and saved a 25-page simplex document to 300-ppi searchable PDF in an average of 50 seconds, about 50% longer than its time to scan to image PDF but still a very respectable time.

It took the Epson DS-60000 considerably longer—3 minutes 22 seconds—to scan and save the same document at 300 ppi to searchable PDF, while the Xerox DocuMate 4830 tested at 2:34 at the same resolution. Yet the KV-S5055C doesn't approach the searchable PDF scanning abilities of many Canon document scanners, which lose little or no time when scanning to searchable PDF over their speed in scanning to image PDF. For example, the Editors' Choice Canon imageFormula DR-C125 ($495 list, 4 stars), rated at just 25 ppm/50 ipm, took 1 minute to scan our test document to searchable PDF, losing no time at all.

The KV-S5055C gets the job done as a fast sheet-fed document scanner for high-volume scanning at up to tabloid size, and is easy to recommend as such. Although it didn't match its rated speeds in our official timings, it was still fast in scanning to image PDF, and didn't lose too much time in scanning to searchable PDF.

The Panasonic KV-S5055C has considerably higher rated and timed speeds than the Epson WorkForce DS-60000, and the Xerox DocuMate 4830; like those two scanners, it fell somewhat short of its rated speed in our testing but was still within a reasonable range. The KV-S5055C did especially well in comparison to those models when scanning to searchable PDF. The DS-60000 and 4830 do add a flatbed, enabling you to scan book pages and fragile documents, and come at a much lower price. But for sheer brawn and raw speed, the Panasonic is a formidable scanner that should find a home in mid-sized or larger offices and busy workgroups with significant scanning demands.