Now that most long-distance communication happens digitally, it is useful to have a way of quickly digitizing physical documents. While a traditional desktop sheetfed scanner or flatbed scanner may serve you well in an office or home office, having a portable scanner allows you greater flexibility.

Portable scanners can travel with you if your work takes you on the road. They can also be the perfect compact tool for a home office setup with limited space because you can simply put them away in a drawer between uses.

With a portable scanner, you can clear out space in your file cabinets by scanning and digitally storing receipts, invoices, and other documents you need for your record-keeping. Scanners are especially helpful during tax season, as you can scan all of your financial documents and then prepare your return using tax software.

Remote work has made it more important than ever to have easy-to-use, affordable office tools at your fingertips. Some devices, like all-in-one printers, are big investments that help you cover a lot of bases with one machine. Others, like portable printers, can be both practical and fun: choose a smartphone photo printer to use at parties so you can send everyone home with a little memento of the event.

To get the most out of your mobile scanner, consider what software will serve your needs. Do you want to keep track of business expenses with bookkeeping software? Would you love to touch up old photos with photo editing software?

For storing digitized documents, invest in an external hard drive or external SSD—much smaller than a file cabinet. You can also back up documents on the cloud. It’s always good to have copies of important documents in more than one place.