Scanner Type Many types of scanners exist on the market. Flatbed and Photo scanners are the most popular and are great for scanning in the home office or small business environment. Sheetfed are designed for law offices where lots of paper needs to be scanned. Handheld scanners are great for the traveling business person. Barcode scanners are widely used in the retail industry to scan UPC codes and the emergence of scanners reading UPC codes that are connected to a PC are gaining popularity. Film type can scan, positive film, slides and x-ray's.