As a compact document scanner for small to midsize offices or workgroups, the Fujitsu fi-7160 ($1,195) provides very good scan speeds. It has a solid set of features for improving scan reliability and quality. It fell bit short of the Editors' Choice Epson WorkForce DS-860 Color Document Scanner in terms of scanning to both image and searchable PDF formats, however, and its OCR performance on our tests wasn't as good either.

Features
The black and white fi-7160 is compact and light for a document scanner of its caliber. At 6.4 by 11.8 by 6.7 inches (HWD) and 9.3 pounds, and should be easy to find room for on a desk. Its output tray curves upward to reduce noise and for easy paper capture. It has an 80-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) that holds letter- and legal-size documents and can scan documents up to 18.3 feet long. It can handle sticky notes, receipts, and labels taped to the pages, and scan hard and embossed credit and ID cards up to 1.4mm thick. Ultrasonic feed detection helps secure against multi-feeds. At the scanner's right-hand edge, a five-line monochrome LCD, coupled with up and down arrows, lets you control many functions from the scanner itself. As is the case with most workgroup document scanners, the fi-7160 only works with Windows PCs. It's one of a small but growing number of scanners that we've reviewed that supports USB 3.0, although our testbeds are still limited to USB 2.0.

It should be noted that the fi-7160 is identical to the Fujitsu fi-7260, but the latter adds an integrated, letter-size flatbed that lets users scan book pages and other delicate material.

Software
As is true with many higher-end document scanners, the fi-7160 comes with minimal software, as most IT departments have deployed a preferred document management solution around the company. Software includes PaperStream IP Twain and ISIS drivers, the PaperStream Capture scan utility, and ScanSnap Manager for fi Series, which is a utility for directing scans to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Email, Print, Folder, Picture Folder, and editing for PDF. Abbyy FineReader for ScanSnap 5.0 works with ScanSnap Manager to provide optical character recognition (OCR) for converting scans to text documents. Scanner Central Admin lets the IT department manage a fleet of scanners.

I used PaperStream Capture for our speed testing. With this utility, you're limited to scanning to BMP, PDF, TIFF, and JPG formats. It offers three default color profiles—Black and White, Color, and Auto Color—from which you can clone, edit, and rename custom profiles. For example, Black and White is (peculiarly) set to save documents in TIFF format, and I changed it to save to PDF for our testing.

Speed
Fujitsu rates the fi-7160 at 60 pages per minute (ppm) for simplex (one-sided) and duplex (two-sided) scanning at either 200 pages per inch (ppi) or 300ppi across all color modes. Ratings supplied by companies are based on raw scan speed, the time actually spent scanning the pages, and in that, this scanner exactly matched its rated speed.

Our timings, however, measure from when we press the scan button to when the document is saved to file. (With the fi-7160, it's a two-step process, because after the pages are scanned, a popup message asks if you want to add more pages. In my testing, I stopped the timer when that popup appeared, and restarted it when I clicked "No.") Using Black and White mode to save to image PDF, the fi-7160 tested at 40.5ppm for simplex scanning and 40.5ppm or 81 images per minute (ipm), where each side of a page counts as one image, in duplex to image PDF format.

Although our timed speed fell short of its rated speed in our tests, the fi-7160 is still a fast scanner. To its credit, it didn't lose any time in scanning and saving two-sided documents over simplex. The Epson WorkForce DS-860, our Editors' Choice for moderate to heavy-duty scanning in a midsize office, and rated at a slightly faster 65ppm for simplex and 130ipm for duplex, scanned the same test file at a 54ppm/91ipm clip.

In scanning the same document to searchable PDF, which adds a text-recognition stage, the fi-7160 averaged 1 minute 26 seconds. This is faster than most scanners, but just out of the top tier. The Epson DS-860 averaged 1:12, while the Canon imageFormula DR-C225, our Editors' Choice personal and micro-office document scanner and rated at just 25ppm and 50ipm, averaged 1:09.

In ad-hoc testing in scanning to searchable PDF using Auto Color mode, the fi-7160 matched the time it turned in when scanning to black-and-white. This was a lot more consistent than the Panasonic KV-S1057C, which took a sizzling 40 seconds in scanning to searchable PDF in black and white, but took 1:36 when using Auto Color, despite—like the fi-7160—having the same rated speed across all resolutions and color modes.

See How We Test Scanners

OCR
The fi-7160 includes a light version of the Abbyy FineReader OCR program (FineReader for ScanSnap 5.0), which can't be opened separately but is yoked to the ScanSnap Manager utility. Its OCR performance was erratic. It read our Ariel test font without error down to 6 points, but could only read Times New Roman perfectly down to 12 points. It did well on some of our more obscure test fonts, although others stumped it.

Conclusion
The Fujitsu fi-7160 is a capable document scanner, and has a slew of features to help improve scan quality. It is well worth considering by a small to midsize business or busy workgroup looking for a scanner that can scan documents quickly and in volume. For faster performance, and better OCR, however, the Epson WorkForce DS-860 is still our top pick.