Flatbed Scanner

A device that uses a flat glass surface on which documents or books are placed face-down to be digitised by a sensor that moves beneath the glass. In assistive technology, flatbed scanners have been used with optical character recognition (OCR) and text-to-speech software to create reading systems for blind and visually impaired users. However, the requirement to place materials face-down and scan one page at a time makes the process slow and unnatural, prompting the development of camera-based alternatives that allow books to be read face-up.