This works well, but perceptive ScanSnappers may have noticed something strange: there are two different settings for enabling searchable PDFs (aka Optical Character Recognition, or OCR). Why on earth would they do this?
Well, I can’t answer the why, but I can at least shed some light on what the different settings do, as far as I can figure out.
The OCR Settings
To access your ScanSnap Manager Profiles, right-click on the ScanSnap icon on your Dock (Mac) or System Tray (Windows). Choose Settings or Scan Button Settings, depending on your OS.
Application Tab
On the Application tab, when you have one of the Scan To Evernote applications selected, there is an Application Settings… button.
Application Tab Button
When you press it, you will see there is a Convert to Searchable PDF checkbox. That is setting #1.
Application Tab Setting
File option Tab
When you go to the File option tab of your ScanSnap Manager profile, you will see there is also a Convert to Searchable PDF checkbox. That is setting #2.
File option Tab Setting
So, What Is The Difference?
Before getting into the difference, I do need to point out one quirk of the way that ScanSnap Manager Evernote profiles work.
When you scan, it will upload your document (or image) to Evernote, but it will also save the PDF in the location specified on the Save tab.[1]
As far as I can tell, here is how it works:
If you only check the Application tab checkbox, the file that is uploaded to Evernote is searchable, but the file that is saved to the folder specified on the Save tab is not searchable.
If you do not check the Application tab checkbox but do check the File option tab checkbox, the file that is uploaded is searchable, and the file that is saved to the Save tab is searchable.
If you check neither checkbox, the PDF that is uploaded to Evernote and the PDF that is saved to the Save tab location are not searchable. At that point, what happends depends on your status as an Evernote Premium customer.
So there you go, mystery solved. Either way, being able to scan to Evernote is a great feature, and I’m glad Fujitsu opened it up to all 2009-and-later ScanSnaps. Thanks to user Leothe3rd from the Evernote forum for the inspiration for this blog post.
I personally wish you could turn this behavior off, but it is what it is. ↩
One of the nice things about buying the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 or ScanSnap S1500M is that they come with a full version of Adobe Acrobat. Given how expensive Acrobat is, this makes the higher ScanSnap line a pretty good deal if you can swing it.
Given that the S1500 and S1500 came out in 2009, the version of Acrobat that shipped with them has fallen a bit behind the times. The S1500 shipped with Acrobat 9 for Windows, and the S1500M shipped with Acrobat 8 for Mac.
Fortunately, Fujitsu has announced today that the ScanSnap S1500 will now sell with Acrobat X Standard, and the S1500M will now sell with Acrobat 9 Pro.
Why are Mac users a version behind again? I am not sure, I assume it is some sort of licensing negotiations between Adobe and Fujitsu.
If you already have a ScanSnap with the older version of Acrobat, Adobe does provide upgrade pricing. They have an upgrade chart, and you can pick up the Acrobat X Upgrade for Windows or for Mac on Amazon.
You can read more in Fujitsu’s press release here.
Back in early 2011, I wrote a post outlining how to scan to the OmniFocus Inbox. I am not an OmniFocus user myself, so the content of the post came via a helpful reader, Jos van de Voort van de Kleij.
It turns out that since that post, Jos has switched[1] from OmniFocus to Cultured Code’s Things, and wants to try to replicate the workflow as much as possible with his ScanSnap.
To accomplish this, Jos is looking for some Applescript help. Since I am neither a Things user nor an Applescript guru, I thought I’d post Jos’ plea here, and see if anyone has any ideas. If you do, feel free to comment here. Sounds like a fun project.
In Things my current workflow for ticklers is that I scan to Cloudapp (which works wonderfully by setting up a profile on the ScanSnap). Cloudapp places the url for the document on the clipboard. I then open a new task in Things, I copy the url in the notes section and schedule the task when I need to see it in the future.
That works wonderfully but: It would be so nice if I could put a document in the scanner and I would end up in an action in Things that I only need to schedule.
So I would need some Applescript to do that for me. Anyone out there that could help write the script??
I could set a profile on the scanner that scans to a folder. Then a folder script should copy the file to Cloudapp, wait for Cloudapp to finish uploading, then open a new action in Things and copy the Cloudapp url from the clipboard to the notes section.
As the ScanSnap can scan to the Cloudapp directly, any more elegant workflow using that would be fine too.
Any Mac geeks want to take a crack at this?
Usually I hear about people going from Things to OmniFocus, I think this is the first I’ve heard of someone going the other way. ↩
This video on stopping the Fujitsu ScanSnap from prompting you is part of a series of quick videos on paperless tips and topics. View more in the series here.
Often when you scan with the ScanSnap, it prompts to you set the filename and folder. This can be handy because you can get everything done in one step and don’t need to mess around with the file after.
However, if you are scanning a bunch of documents at once, it can really slow you down. This video shows you how to disable the popup so that your scans go right into a folder, and you can deal with the files later.
The ability to scan to your iPhone or iPad is not the only software update that Fujitsu released this week. They have also added new cloud scanning functionality as well.
Some of the services have been around for a while with the ScanSnap S1100, and some have quietly been released as online updates, but this is the first time that the company has released them all together to all 2009-and-later ScanSnap models (that means the ScanSnap S1100, the ScanSnap S1300, the ScanSnap S1500, and the ScanSnap S1500M.)
I thought I’d take a run through of the cloud scanning options that exist as of this update.
If you haven’t already, follow the instructions at the start of this ScanSnap Connect post to get the Online Update.
Scan To Evernote
You have long been able to use your ScanSnap to scan to Evernote. In fact, one of the most popular posts on DocumentSnap remains this ScanSnap Evernote tutorial from 2009.
Starting with the ScanSnap S1100, the ScanSnap software has had the built-in ability to scan to the Evernote client.
At the time, I wrote this post about the S1100 software that takes you through the Evernote scanning functionality. Now with the update, you can do this on all newer models.
Scan To Google Docs
Fujitsu actually snuck the ability to scan to Google Docs into ScanSnap Manager back in July 2011, but I strongly suspect that unless you were upgrading your ScanSnap software to Lion, you would have had no reason to upgrade.
To learn more about scanning to Google Docs with your ScanSnap, you can again see my S1100 software post for instructions on how that all works.
Scan To SugarSync
This is one service that is new with this week’s update. ScanSnap users now have the ability to scan to SugarSync. I know that DocumentSnap has a lot of SugarSync fans, so this should make some of you happy.
To be totally honest, I didn’t really understand this when I heard about it. Can’t you just “scan to SugarSync” by scanning to a synchronized folder?
It turns out, according to this Fujitsu page, it looks like when you scan to SugarSync, it will allow you to do some file manipulation before uploading. So there you go.
Scan To Salesforce Chatter
Yeah, I wasn’t really familiar with Salesforce Chatter either. Fortunately, Salesforce does have an information page about it.
I can only assume that if you are a Salesforce Chatter user, this is good news. You can see Fujitsu’s page for more information about it.
So, there you go, some of the new (and not so new) updates that Fujitsu released in North America this week. If you are a cloud-scanner, check it out.
In the past, a common knock against the Fujitsu ScanSnap was that once you bought the scanner, you were stuck with the software. Sure there would be operating system updates, but you would have to buy a new scanner to get new software goodies.
In recent versions of their software, Fujitsu has really started to address this. Once they added the ability to do online updates, it has really improved the situation. The recent smooth OS X Lion upgrade and addition of Google Docs scanning are two examples of this.
This week, Fujitsu has released[1] their largest online update yet: the addition of new cloud services, and their first iPhone and iPad apps.
Over the next few posts, I am going to be going through some of the new updates, starting with the new Scan To Mobile functionality.
Get The Update
Before you do anything, you are going to need to update your ScanSnap Manager software. Fortunately, this is pretty easy.
Right-click on the ScanSnap icon in your Dock (for Mac users) or System Tray (for Windows Users), go to Help and then Online Update.
ScanSnap Online Update
Before I ran it, I had Mac software version 3.2 L20. Afterwards I was on 3.2 L41. For the Scan To Mobile functionality, you need to be on at least 3.2L31 for Mac or 5.1L30 for Windows.
Set Up Scan To Mobile
Before using Scan To Mobile, you have to set it up with a password. The easiest way to do this is to run it first and set it up.
On the Mac, go to Applications > ScanSnap > Scan To Mobile. On Windows, go to the equivalent program through your Start Menu. Run Scan To Mobile.
Scan To Mobile Finder
First time you run it, it gives you a popup with instructions. Read it and hit OK.
Then you need to give it a password.
ScanSnap Mobile Password
There are a few options here worth mentioning. The first is Start up “Scan To Mobile” when you log in. Despite what you see in the screenshot, I decided to turn this off. The reason why is because if I am going to start my scan from ScanSnap Manager, it will start up the program anyways. No need to have something running in the background if I am not using it.[2]
The second option is Wait until the Send button is clicked. By checking this, it will allow you to batch up your scans before sending them to your mobile device. For our purposes we will leave this off, but you can enable it later if you want to.
When you hit OK, it puts an item up in your Menu Bar (or, I assume, System Tray on Windows). It is yellow because we are not currently connected to a mobile device. That will change color when we are.
ScanSnap Mobile Menu Bar
In the windows that pops up, you can see the Scan To Mobile application is waiting for a connection.[3]
ScanSnap Mobile Waiting For Connection
Set Up Mobile Device
As I mentioned earlier, Fujitsu has released a free iOS app for iPad and iPhone: ScanSnap Connect. Install it on your mobile device of choice.
Once you have installed ScanSnap Connect, fire up the app. If you are on the same Wi-Fi network as your computer, you should be prompted to enter the password for ScanSnap Scan To Mobile that you set up earlier.
ScanSnap Connect Password
If you want to see your connections, you can hit the drop-down in the Connect To field. You can see my Untitled computer there with a checkmark.
ScanSnap Connect Computers
Back on the computer, now that I have fired up the app and put in my password, my iPad shows up.
ScanSnap Connect iPad There
Scanning
There are a number of ways that you can scan to your iOS device, but I will take you through setting up a ScanSnap Manager profile.
First you want to right-click on the ScanSnap icon in your Dock or System Tray and choose Settings or Scan Button Settings.
Hit the Profile dropdown box and choose Add Profile.
On the Application tab in the Application drop-down, choose the new Scan To Mobile application.
ScanSnap Scan To Mobile
This is what your Application tab will look like:
ScanSnap Application Tab
Set up the rest of the tabs in your ScanSnap Manager profile however you would normally do it.
Make sure ScanSnap Connect is started on the mobile device, and hit the Scan button on the scanner.
It will show the received scan on the iOS device, and then you will see that it has sent on the computer.
ScanSnap Document SentScanSnap Connect iOS There
Documents On The Mobile Device
On your iPhone or iPad, you can tap the little arrow on the right to view the PDF or JPG in the ScanSnap Connect application, or if you tap the name, you can (probably more usefully) send it to another application that handles PDFs.
ScanSnap Connect Send To
Other Options
If you just use the Quick Menu, there is now a Scan To Mobile option that you can use without having to set up a profile.
Also, if you use Windows, you can initiate the mobile scan using ScanSnap Organizer or Rack2-Filer.
As far as mobile devices go, it works on the iPad, iPad 2, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod Touch 3rd and 4th Gen. I assume it works on the iPhone 4S as well, but they don’t mention it.
Unfortunately, no mention of Android devices, but hopefully that will come someday?
All-in-all, this is an interesting update. Of course there are many ways to get your documents onto your iPhone or iPad, but I can see this being handy if I just want to send a quick scan without doing the Dropbox / GoodReader dance.
How about you, have you tried this out? What do you think?
In North America anyways. It has been out for quite a while in Japan. ↩
If anyone knows a reason why this is not a good idea, let me know in the comments. ↩
I haven’t been able to figure out why my computer is named Untitled, but oh well. If you know how to change this, please leave a comment. ↩
This video on Installing A ScanSnap Without An Optical Drive is part of a series of quick videos on paperless tips and topics. View more in the series here.
Both the MacBook Air and the new Mac Minis do not come with a DVD drive. I actually agree with this move as optical media is both annoying and old school, but what do you do when you have some hardware with drivers on a DVD?
I recently had to install the drivers for my ScanSnap S1300 on my new MacBook Air, so I made a video about two options that you have:
It looks like Fujitsu has now posted the CardIris for ScanSnap Update as of the end of August, and you can download it here.
I haven’t tried it yet, so feel free to let us know your experience in the comments positive or negative.
Update:
Some (all?) users have reported a problem saving cards even after applying the Lion update. Awesome DocumentSnap reader Fred contacted IRIS support, and this is how they responded:
Here is the link to download the Intel based 3.6.6 software which is updateable and will install on Lion. You can then download and install the 4.0.13 update. If you have a problem with the download then use Firefox, available at www.mozilla.com to download the software, Safari may cause an incomplete or corrupt download.
If you use a Mac, I am sure that you know that Mac OS X 10.7 Lion has been released today via the Mac App Store. Similar to what I did with Snow Leopard and Windows 7, I thought I’d put this post up so that you can share your experiences with the Fujitsu ScanSnap. How is it working for you?
I just returned from vacation last night so I am in catchup mode, so I haven’t had a chance to install Lion yet. How is your ScanSnap working on Lion, both the scanner itself and the software that comes with it? Leave a note in the comments or forum and let us know. I’ll update this post as new information becomes available.
Update: Fujitsu has released the Lion drivers for the ScanSnap S300M, S510M, S500M, fi-5110EOXM. You can download them here.
Update 9/19/2011: Fujitsu has released an update for CardIris. You can download it here.
My dad is really into genealogy, and he often finds himself scanning old newspaper articles or other documents that contain faded text.
Often he takes the OCR’ed text from these documents and pastes it into his genealogy program, so OCR accuracy is pretty important. The problem is, when the text is too light, his OCR program (in this case Abbyy Finereader that comes with his ScanSnap) has trouble recognizing the text.
The solution (which he figured out by himself, impressively), is to set his scanner to darken the text before OCR is applied. The instructions in this post are for a Fujitsu ScanSnap, but if you have a different scanner you should almost certainly be able to do the same thing.
Fire up ScanSnap Manager by right-clicking on the ScanSnap icon either in your Dock or System Tray. Choose Settings or Scan Button Settings.
Choose your Profile, or if you are using the Quick Menu, hit Customize.
Go to the Scanning tab and make sure your Color mode is B&W. Hit the Option button.
Drag the darkness slider way over to the right. Hit OK.
Hit Apply.
Now your new profile should scan black and white text much darker, and hopefully you’ll get better results from OCR. If the scan is too dark, just move the slider to the left a bit until you get the best balance of darkness/OCR performance.
Any other tips for scanning old documents? Let us know in the comments.
Join the forum discussion on this post
Both the MacBook Air and the new Mac Minis do not come with a DVD drive. I actually agree with this move as optical media is both annoying and old school, but what do you do when you have some hardware with drivers on a DVD?
