DocumentSnap » Scanners

How To Scan Large Multipage Documents With The Fujitsu ScanSnap

Brooks — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:46:53 +0000

The Fujitsu ScanSnap‘s Automatic Document Feeder is great for taking a stack of documents and ripping through it, but what do you do when the document you want to scan has more pages than the feeder can hold?

This is particularly an issue with the ScanSnap S1300, which can only hold 10 sheets at a time.

It turns out it’s not a huge problem at all. You just need to make one change to your ScanSnap Manager profile.

Right click on the ScanSnap icon in your Dock or System Tray and choose Settings (or Scan Button Settings on Windows).

Then go to the Scanning tab. You’ll see a checkbox that says Continue scanning after current scan is finished. Check that and hit Apply.

Now, when you stack of documents in the feeder and hit the scan button, after it finishes it will prompt you to add more pages. If you’re done the document, hit Finish Scanning. Otherwise, add more pages into the feeder and hit Continue Scanning.

If you scan a lot of large documents, it may be worth your while to create a special ScanSnap Manager profile just for this. Otherwise, you can just change the setting when you need it (or leave it checked all the time if you don’t mind the Finished Scanning box coming up every time).

(Photo: FeatheredTar)

Fujitsu ScanSnap: How Are The S1300 and ScanSnap S1500 Models Different?

Brooks — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 17:03:12 +0000

I get asked this question quite a bit: “What is the difference between the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 and the ScanSnap S1500 series?”, and then the logical followup: “Which should I buy?”.

I decided to put together this blog post for me to point people to, so here is a rundown of the differences between the ScanSnap models.

Speed

S1500/S1500M: Up to 20 pages per minute
S1300: Up to 8 pages per minute

Clearly the S1500 series has the edge here. If you are doing a large amount of scanning, you will probably want to go with the S1500 or S1500M.

Capacity

S1500/S1500M: Maximum 50 sheets
S1300: Maximum 10 sheets

Again, the S1500 is a pretty clear winner. If you are regularly scanning more than 10 sheets at a time, you will probably want to pick up the S1500 or S1500M. Otherwise, the limited capacity of the S1300 is going to get pretty annoying.

Size/Weight

S1500/S1500M: 11.5 x 6.3 x 6.2 in. (292 x 159 x 158 mm). 6.62 lb (3.0 kg).
S1300: 11.18 in. x 3.90 in. x 3.03 in. (284mm x 99mm x 77mm). 3.08 lb. (1.4kg).

Both versions of the ScanSnap are compact, and I am not sure that this category has a “winner” per se, but the S1300 is quite a bit smaller and lighter than the S1500 series.

Operating System

The S1500 is designed for Microsoft Windows. However, it does include Mac OSX drivers and can be used to scan on a Mac. It does not include the extra software (including OCR software) for Mac.

The S1500M is designed for Mac OSX. However, it does include Windows drivers and can be used to scan on a PC. It does not include the extra software (including OCR software) for Windows.

Fujitsu is calling the S1300 their first “hybrid scanner”. It is designed to be used both on Windows and the Mac, and comes with all the software for both.

Included Software

The ScanSnap S1500 includes the following software:

ScanSnap Organizer
Adobe Acrobat 9 for Windows
CardMinder 4.0
ABBYY FineReader for ScanSnap

The ScanSnap S1500M includes the following software:

Adobe Acrobat 8 for Mac
CardIris 3.6
ABBYY FineReader for ScanSnap

The ScanSnap S1300 includes the following software:

ScanSnap Organizer (Windows only)
CardMinder 4.1 (Windows only)
ABBYY FineReader for ScanSnap (Windows and Mac)
CardIris 3.6 (Mac only)

If you’re paying attention, you’ll notice right off the bat that the S1300 does not include Adobe Acrobat. That may or may not make the price difference worth it to you.

Mobility

While I wouldn’t call the S1500 or S1500M a big scanner, it is clearly not as mobile as the S1300.

Aside from size and weight, the ScanSnap S1300 has the ability to run off a USB port’s power, so you theoretically don’t even need to take your power adapter with you.

Color

Come on, don’t pretend that the look of your peripheral isn’t important.

The ScanSnap S1500 has a black and silver look, while the S1500M is a more Mac-y white and grey.

With the release of the hybrid S1300, Fujitsu decided to go with the S1500′s color scheme. Bye bye white!

Of course, there is always the lacquer option too.

Other Goodies

The ScanSnap S1500 and S1500M come with a carrier sheet, so you can more easily scan odd-sized paper.

So Which Is Better?

I bet you know what I am going to say here: It depends!

If you have a large and/or regular volume of paper, I strongly urge you to go for the ScanSnap S1500 or the ScanSnap S1500M. The extra speed and paper capacity will save you lots of time.

If you have a need to be mobile, or if you do only a small amount of scanning, you can probably get away with the ScanSnap S1300.

The right model of ScanSnap for you really depends on your needs. As Apu said to Mr. Burns, “Just look into your heart, and you will find the answer.”

Do You Want A Hand-Lacquered ScanSnap? Of Course You Do

Brooks — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:04:53 +0000

I happen to think that the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 and S1300 are pretty good looking machines, as far as scanners go.

But sometimes, I want more. Like for example, it would be nice to have a bird hand-painted on it.

Well, it’s my lucky day.

PFU, which is the division of Fujitsu in Japan that makes the ScanSnap, is celebrating its 50th anniversary. How else to do that but to release a limited edition, traditionally lacquered ScanSnap S1500 and S1300.

Each one is made to order and they are limited to 25 of each. How much do they cost? If you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it.

But if you’re curious, it’s 300,000 and 200,000 Yen respectively, which is about $3400 and $2300 USD. A bargain at twice the price.

Each order will take two months to complete.

If you want more information, and can read Japanese (which I certainly can not), head over to PFU’s site.

Looks like Fujitsu America has released a press release about the limited edition scanners here. The price is $3200 for the S1500 and $2200 for the S1300. If you want to order one, call 1-888-425-8228.

(via Akihabara News)

How To Make A $20 Book Scanner

Brooks — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:11:28 +0000

In most cases I recommend scanners with an automatic document feeder, but one big case where they don’t work out so well is when scanning a book.

The most logical solution is to cut the book and then feed the pages through your scanner, but what if you don’t want to do that?

Over on Instructables, they’ve posted a Portable, Paperless, Digital Copy Machine with instructions on how you can build it yourself.

As the author says:

Your materials should cost less than $20, maybe less than $10, and the labor time should be only a few hours. I am assuming that you already have a digital camera and a computer for downloading pictures. Of course, your camera will do most of the work here, but you will provide it with a steady stand that has a press for getting those book pages flat.

As my wife will attest, I’m not the most handy person in the world (I’ve been known to get my fingers stuck to things with Crazy Glue), but I think I am going to give this one a try. If I succeed I’ll post a video of it in action.

If you paired this with something like an Eye-Fi card and some folder actions, you could have a pretty cool book scanning workflow.

If you have other tips for book scanning (or if you’ve rigged something like this), let us know in the comments.

Video: Scanning A Book With the ScanSnap

Using A ScanSnap With A Network USB Hub – Your Experience?

Brooks — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 16:18:33 +0000

One topic that has come up in the comments a number of times over the years here on DocumentSnap is using a Fujitsu ScanSnap over the network.

Up until now I had never figured out a way to do that, but I recently came across some murmurings that implied that some people have had success using a Belkin F5L009 Network USB Hub with their ScanSnap.

In the name of science I was going to pick one up to try it out, but before I do I thought I’d check with the illustrious DocumentSnap readership, the vast majority of whom are much smarter than I am, to see if any of you have tried this out and had success.

So, has anyone tried a network USB hub with your ScanSnap? How did it go? Leave a note in the comments.

Lexmark SmartSolution – Lets Hear It For The All-In-Ones

Brooks — Tue, 18 May 2010 17:02:36 +0000

For whatever reason, I don’t tend to write as much about all-in-one or multifunction devices. You know, the ones that print, scan, fax, make waffles, etc.

Maybe it is because the frustration with the one that I have is what lead me to getting into this whole DocumentSnap thing in the first place.

Anyways, it’s time that I rectified this, so I am going to do it right now by pointing you to the Lexmark SmartSolution line of devices.

Why these particular multifunctions? They have some pretty interesting features. I’m not really going to get into the printing part because, you know, that kind of goes against what this whole site is about. I’m going to talk about the connectivity and scanning parts.

Wireless – All the devices come with Wireless-N so that you can print, scan, etc. without needing to be plugged in.
Big Touch Screen – All the functionality is performed by a large colour touch screen
Apps! – I am all about the apps, and Lexmark has little applications that they call (drum roll) SmartSolutions that you can download to your device. You can find more info on what is available here.
ADF Scanning – The Prestige Pro805, Pinnacle Pro901, and Platinum Pro905 all come with an automatic document feeder, so you can put in a stack of documents and it will suck them in.
Evernote Integration – Yep, you heard me right. There is a “Scan To Evernote” SmartSolution that will let you scan a document or photo right into your Evernote account.
Duplex Printing – It will print on both sides. Handy for saving paper when you do have to print something.

So, all in all, not too shabby.

There are four flavors of SmartSolution devices, so I’ll give you a quick runthrough.

Lexmark Interact S605 – The most basic model. It has all the features above except for the document feeder for scanning. You need to put one sheet at a time on the flatbed. If you are going to do any volume of scanning at all (which you probably will be if you are reading this site), I’d probably not choose this one.

Lexmark Prestige Pro805 – Has the features above, including the document feeder for scanning. It comes with a network port for plugging into the network if you don’t want to use Wi-Fi.

Lexmark Pinnacle Pro901 – Has the features above, plus can also fax.

Lexmark Platinum Pro905 – The big daddy. Has all the features of the Pro901 but has an extra tray for more printing capacity.

So there you go. As far as all-in-ones go, the Lexmark SmartSolution line looks pretty decent. Do you have another multifunction device that you love? Let us know about it in the comments.

Fujitsu Offers To Buy You An Evernote Premium Account

Brooks — Wed, 12 May 2010 18:09:27 +0000

So I know that I posted about Evernote just a few days ago, but I couldn’t possibly let this go by without letting you guys know about it.

Evernote and Fujitsu cut a deal where if you buy a ScanSnap S1500 (for Windows) or S1500M (for Mac) and then sign up for an Evernote Premium account, Fujitsu will rebate you $50. Not bad!

Unfortunately, this deal is only for US residents (first Hulu and now this?!), but for the Americans in the house it’s a pretty sweet deal.

Here are the details from their blog post:

Your ScanSnap must be purchased between May 1st, 2010 and July 31st, 2010

You must have an annual Evernote Premium account, if you’re month-to-month consider switching to the annual version

Complete this rebate form, making sure to include your Evernote information

Mail the completed form along with the original UPC to the specified address

This is open to US residents only. Please review the Terms and Conditions on the rebate form for additional rules

Check their post for more information. Hope this helps!

How To Create Searchable PDFs With The ScanSnap S300M

If You Want To Get Doxie, Now’s Your Chance

Brooks — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:41:20 +0000

It seems pretty incredible to me that I haven’t written about Doxie yet, but here we are. It’s shipping worldwide as of today.

Doxie is, in their words, “the new, modern paper scanner that’s so simple, it’ll revolutionize the way you think about sharing and storing docs and photos forever”. That’s a pretty bold claim! Let’s take a closer look.

Scanner Stuff First

First the normal scanner stuff. Doxie will take a document or photo up to 8.5×14 or A4 and kick out a PDF, JPG, or PNG.

It’s not dual sided and doesn’t have a document feeder, but that is by design. They’ve decided (they say) to focus on making Doxie simple and inexpensive.

Speed-wise, it scans at 12 seconds per page at 200 dpi grayscale.

It uses USB power, so you don’t need to have it plugged into a wall as well. Just plug it into your Mac or PC and you are good to go.

All About The Apps

Apparent (the makers of Doxie) have said that they are keeping the price down by doing almost all of the processing with software instead of by the scanner itself.

To that end, Doxie’s software lets you specify an application to send the scanned files to for further OCRing, processing, etc.

Doxie’s Head Is In The Clouds

You can tell that Apparent realize that a lot of what we do with documents is share them with other people, and they are doubling down on that bet. This thing is built to operate with online services.

In fact, they have taken the (extremly smart in my opinion) move of creating an online service to host your documents so that you can scan a document and it gives you a shortened URL you can send to people. Very smart.

They’ve already set up links to Evernote, Flickr, Google Docs, Picasa, Picnik, Scribd, Tumblr, and Twitter. I assume this list will grow.

Should I Choose Doxie Or Another Scanner?

Come on now, you already know I am going to say “it depends”, don’t you?

Anyways, it really does. With 5 pages per minute and no duplex or ADF, you are probably not going to be running your law office or something on Doxie, but if you are not a heavy scanner user and your main use case is sharing documents or sending them to Evernote or something, you can’t really beat the $129 price tag.

I haven’t gotten my hands on one yet so how about you? Have you tried Doxie? What do you think of the concept even if you haven’t? Let us know in the comments.

Does The Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 OCR Use A Lot Of CPU?

Brooks — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:24:43 +0000

In the comments to my ScanSnap S1300 review post, user pendolino asked about the Fujitsu ScanSnap 1300‘s performance, not so much the scanner itself, but the software and OCR process afterwards.

i would like to know a bit more about the very interesting sounding OCR feature that you say is bundled within the software (both mac and win) and, from your screenshot, seems to be different and separate from Adobe Acrobat. how fast does it OCR a B&W page of standard text? does it do it seamlessly? is it heavy on a Mac CPU slowing down other running applications, etc?

I couldn’t think of a better way to answer this question than to do a video of scanning and OCRing a document, so that’s what I did.

Now, obviously a lot of this depends on the computer. I am doing this on a slightly old MacBook Pro with a 2.5 GHZ Core 2 Duo processor and 4 Gigs of RAM. It’s going to be different for you if you have Windows, or different specs, or whatever, but hopefully this will give you an idea.

Hope this helps!

New ScanSnap S1300 Video From Fujitsu

Brooks — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:03:35 +0000

If you want to see another video of the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 in action with runthrough of the features and benefits, the company has just released a new video (funky music is a bonus).

It’s 3 minutes long. If you’re looking for it, here’s the link to my ScanSnap S1300 review.

It also mentions the Rack2Filer Deluxe Bundle for the ScanSnap S1300 which is also available.
Anyone pick up the S1300 yet? What do you think?