Query regarding the Scanjet 5500C

[mikemercury]

Can anyone answer a small query regarding the HP Scanjet 5500C flatbed Scanner.

If you lift up the cover/lid of most scanners you'll see a sheet of white board underneath. But on the Scanjet 5500C this board is cut-out like a photo frame. Surely this board has to be full-size to provide an overall white background. Is there something I'm not understanding?

See this link to a photo showing the underside of the lid in the open position.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d152/ ... 00-3-1.jpg

[Kevgermany]

Looks as if the scanner has an adf (automatic document feeder) in the lid. This allows you to put a stack of single sheets in the feed tray and automatically scan them as a batch. The cut out appears to be the tracks/wheels that feed the docs through.

[mikemercury]

Check out this link showing the outside of the scanner - this is what I have.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d152/ISO1/5500-5.jpg

As you can see, the 'in' and 'out' slots (112mm wide) are much narrower than A4 size, which seems to be for scanning negatives and slides.
However the office from where I aquired the scanner said they only used it for scanning documents.