Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 Review
March 9, 2010
I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a review copy of a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300, so I thought I’d write up my initial impressions and show some of the new stuff that DocumentSnap readers might find interesting.
As of this writing I have only installed it on Mac OSX, but as I wrote in my initial ScanSnap S1300 announcement post, the S1300 is a “hybrid scanner” which just means it comes with everything you need both for Windows and Mac. Maybe later I’ll do a Windows review too.
Mobile Form Factor
I have to be honest, even though I am a longtime user of the ScanSnap S300M, I have never used it in a mobile situation. I like the mobile ScanSnaps because they take up such a small amount of space, and I personally don’t need the higher speed and capacity of the ScanSnap S1500 and S1500M.
You can see from this side by side shot that the size and shape of the S1300 is basically the same as the S300 series.
All that being said, the S1300 comes with mobile features such as USB power, so you can use it without having to plug into a wall outlet (though if you use it this way you need two USB ports – one for the data connection and one for power).
Installation
Installation was very easy. Just put in the CD, install the software, and then plug in the scanner. Fujitsu does a good job of making it extremely fast from unboxing to scanning.
One really nice surprise was that when I installed the S1300 software, it automatically upgraded all my profiles I had with the S300M. I was not expecting that at all!
Long Document Scanning
The ScanSnap S1300 lets you scan long receipts and documents (finally!), a subject in which I have complained about before. To do long document scanning, just put the document in and hold down the blue power key for 3 seconds. Once it starts blinking, its in long document mode. See the video below for a demo.
Auto Quality
If you have small documents, you can have it automatically detect them and up the quality. This was a feature introduced with the S1500 series and is now on the mobile scanners.
Searchable PDFs
One limitation that the S300M had is that it did not come with OCR software to make searchable PDFs. The S1300 comes with it built in for both Macs and PCs.
You can choose on a profile basis whether you want the document to be searchable, and (similar to the S1500 series), you can have it detect highlighted text on a document and save the PDF with searchable keywords. Pretty cool.
Speed And Capacity
Obviously, the S1300 is not going to be as fast as its cousins the S1500 and S1500M. If speed and capacity are your main criteria, you will want to go for the higher model. However, if 8 pages per minute (double sided don’t forget!) is OK for you, and you don’t need to hold more than 10 pages at the time, the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 is a great scanner in a very small and portable package.
Since I know some people like videos, here is a video where I show the ScanSnap S1300, some of its new features, and some of the software that comes with it.
Have you tried the ScanSnap S1300 yet? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Fujitsu Releases Cross-Platform ScanSnap S1300 .. Yeah!
February 10, 2010
Well, it’s official – the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 has been announced and much like Eddie Murphy, it is coming to America.
You might remember a while ago I saw it on Amazon Japan and posted about it. Well, now no need to wait for it to come to the US. It’s announced. I don’t see it on online stores yet, but I will update when I see it.
I will have a full review coming very soon, but lets get the important stuff out of the way:
- Yes, it is a replacement for the S300 and S300M. The 300 series is dead. Long live the 1300!
- Notice there is no 1300M. This is intentional – for the first time, Fujitsu is releasing what they call a “hybrid” – a device that includes everything for both Mac and PC.
Form Factor of S300 With Features Of S1500
The S1300 takes some of the features of the ScanSnap S1500 like:
- Long Documents: This is huge and you might recall me complaining about it before with the S300M. It will now scan receipts etc. up to 34 inches long
- Searchable Keywords: You can now mark with a highlighter and embed searchable keywords in a document
- Auto Quality: You can choose Auto for Image Quality and if you scan a small document, it will adjust automatically
- More Profiles: You can now set up 20 profiles instead of the previous limit of 12
- Searchable PDFs On The Mac: Yes!!!!!!!!!! This was the biggest limitation of the S300M. The ScanSnap S1300 will now make PDFs searchable out of the box.
Software Included
Fujitsu has included most of the software you’d expect with some extras for Mac users over the S300M. It doesn’t come with Acrobat like it’s big cousins the S1500 and S1500M.
PC and Mac:
- ABBYY FineReader for ScanSnap: Does OCR and makes PDFs searchable
- ScanSnap Manager: The main software for the scanner which controls the 1 button operation and enables all the profiles.
PC only:
- ScanSnap Organizer 4.1: Document manager
- CardMinder 4.1: Business card scanning/extraction
- Scan To Functions: Allows you to scan to a folder, email, printer, SharePoint, etc.
Mac only:
- Scan To Functions: Can scan to the usual stuff but also to iPhoto or iDisk
- CardIris 3.6: Business card scanning/extraction
Additional Specs
From a tech perspective, the S1300 is pretty similar to the 300 series.
It scans 8 pages per minute and will hold up to 10 pages, it has auto deskew/orientation, blank page detection, and can (of course) be powered by USB.
It is very very slightly bigger than the 300 series (11.18 x 3.9 x 3.03 in. for the S1300 vs. 11.18 x 3.74 x 3.03 in. for the S300) and is the same weight (3.08 lb.)
As I said, I will be posting my review very soon, but on paper anyways the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 looks like a great upgrade to the 300 series, especially for Mac users (adding searchable PDF is killer!).
What do you think? Anything you are particularly excited about or wish was there? Sound off in the comments.
Cool Paperless Setup Video
February 4, 2010
As much of a paperless geek that I am, I normally wouldn’t sit and watch a video of someone scanning and shredding paper.
However, I just wanted to point you to this YouTube video by user allenday. He’s got a really cool setup of a ScanSnap S300M, Adobe Acrobat, a Mac Mini, a wall-mounted Sharp Aquos, the Royal PX1000MX to shred, and uploads everything to Evernote.
To do the OCRing, he uses the Acrobat OCR Applescript Droplet that I hacked/posted about earlier.
Very cool setup, thanks for sharing allenday! Do any of you have a cool paperless setup? Feel free to share pics or videos in the comments.
How To Create Searchable PDFs With The ScanSnap S300M
February 2, 2010
So you read all this great stuff about how the Fujitsu ScanSnap is awesome and creates searchable PDFs, and you’re on a Mac and want a portable scanner, so you drop the cash on a ScanSnap S300M.
Then you get it home and find out – wait a minute – the S300M doesn’t come with OCR software! If you’ve been there (and I have), hopefully this post will help you out, as I get a lot of questions about this.
Mail-In Rebate
Your local Fujitsu website may provide a mail-in rebate for OCR software if you purchase the S300M. At the time of this writing, the US Fujitsu websites has a mail-in rebate for a free copy of ReadIris OCR software
The rebate is at http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/computing/peripherals/scanners/rebates.html . Check if your country has something similar.
Acrobat
While the S300M doesn’t come with Adobe Acrobat, if you have a copy of it laying around, or have access to it, you can use the ScanSnap with it. Here is an example of how I use the S300M with Acrobat 8.
Evernote
Evernote Premium allows users to upload PDFs and they will be automatically OCR’ed and made searchable.
DevonThink
If you use a program like Devonthink Pro Office to manage your documents, they will be made searchable.
NeatWorks
NeatWorks is a software that is bundled with the NeatDesk scanner, but it can be purchased on its own. See this post for how to use NeatWorks with the Fujitsu ScanSnap.
These are some ideas for how to make searchable PDFs with the ScanSnap S300M. Do you have any others? Leave a message in the comments.
Windows 7 Update For Fujitsu ScanSnap S510 and S500 Is Now Available
January 15, 2010
As we posted earlier, Windows 7 support wasn’t quite there for ScanSnap when the new operating system was released, and the Windows 7 Update for ScanSnap S1500 and S300 was released in December.
Yesterday, Fujitsu sent out a bulletin that the updates for the ScanSnap S510 and S500 have been released.
From the email:
The compatibility update for Windows 7 with ScanSnap S510 & S500 is now available for US based customers.
Please visit the on-line form link below and fill out the form completely.
https://www-s.fujitsu.com/us/services/computing/peripherals/scanners/w7_compform.htmlAfter your submission is verified, you will receive an email within one business day with detailed instructions on how to download and install the ScanSnap applications for your Window 7 operating system.
So, for whatever reason, it looks like they are doing things differently this time and you have to fill out form to get sent the instructions.
What About The f-Series?
According to this support bulletin, the S510 update is due “end of January 2010″.
As always, let us know in the comments how your update goes.
Doing OCR Batch Processing Using The ScanSnap And ABBYY FineReader
January 5, 2010
Sometimes, when you have to scan a large number of documents at once, the step of doing OCR (making the PDF searchable) after each document can really slow things down. It may be preferable to scan them all in and then OCR them all in one big shot.
In the past I have posted about how to do batch OCR using Adobe Acrobat and have posted an Acrobat Applescript.
Over at the Optimality! blog, Tobi has posted a walkthrough of using ABBYY Finereader, which comes with the ScanSnap S1500M (and S1500 for that matter) to do batch OCR.
The problem is that in the default setup, each scan is OCRed right after the scan and depending on the age your machine (my G5 is getting a little long in the tooth) in can take quite a while. When you’re in the process of scanning many hundred’s of pages of paper documents, you don’t want to have to wait for the computer to do it’s OCR recognition, you’d rather feed it all the documents and let it do OCR while you’re doing something else.
Fortunately, this is possible. Reading all the way through the handbook as well as through the ABBYY online help I found out that you can scan to PDF only, and then afterwards convert the PDFs with ABBYY FineReader.
Check out the post here. Do you have any other tricks for doing batch OCR?
Great Paperless Workflow Post At Interface Matters
December 23, 2009
Chris Blatnick over at the Interface Matters blog has just done an absolutely epic post about his paper processing workflow.
He has included a diagram in which he mapped out his process, and two great videos in which he explains and demonstrates the whole thing.
So I recognized a problem: too much paper. That was the first step. Now I needed to make an actionable plan to deal with it. That’s where the ScanSnap came in. I started using it to scan papers in when they came in the mail. As soon as I came across something I needed to keep (my monthly bank statement, for instance), I digitized it and stored it on my hard drive and then shredded the document. Ah…a great feeling. I’ve been doing this for several months now and it has been very successful. However, nagging at the back of my mind (even though it was on my Someday/Maybe GTD list) was the massive task of tackling those file cabinets. Over the Thanksgiving break, I finally took the plunge and mapped out my paper processing workflow.
If you are curious about how different people handle their paper (and if you’re not, why are you here? 
), I highly recommend checking out the post and associated videos.
The tools Chris uses are the ScanSnap S1500 and, a personal favorite, Dropbox. He is also a fellow GTD devotee.
His next step will be to send the documents into Lotus Notes. If you don’t already use it, that’s a little hardcore, but if you already in Notes all day like he is, why not.
Great post Chris!
Video: Is the ScanSnap Dangerous?
December 3, 2009
This guy’s seems to be!
Windows 7 Updates For ScanSnap S1500 and S300 Now Available
December 1, 2009
As we posted earlier, Windows 7 support wasn’t quite there for ScanSnap when the new operating system was released.
Yesterday, Fujitsu sent out a bulletin that at least the updates for the ScanSnap S1500 and S300 have been released.
From the email:
The ScanSnap compatibility update for Windows 7 with ScanSnap S1500 and S300 is now posted! This update is for compatibility with select Windows 7 operating systems only. Proceed to the following site and go to the section labeled “ScanSnap/Organizer Service Packs” and locate the Windows 7 update for your model. Observe the download applicability notes and instructions for additional details related to installing the update.
The download page for the updates is here: http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/computing/peripherals/scanners/support/downloads.html
One thing to note: You need to make sure you download both pieces. The ScanSnap Manager and ScanSnap Organizer updates.
What About The S510?
According to this support bulletin, the S510 update is due “end of December”. Not sure what the difference is, but there you go. I’ll update when it drops.
As always, let us know in the comments how your update goes.
What Is The ScanSnap S1300?
December 1, 2009
Update: The Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 has been released in the US! See this post for details.
OK, well, this is pretty hot. It looks like Fujitsu in Japan has a new ScanSnap cooking up called the ScanSnap S1300.
Basically, it looks like the love child of the ScanSnap S1500 and the S300, with the “M” versions as godparents.
Its compatible with Windows 7 and Mac OSX Snow Leopard out of the box. It has similar specs to the S300 – it’s 8 pages per minute and holds 10 sheets.
Not sure when it will be released in North America but it was released on November 21, 2009 in Japan. Here’s a link to it on Amazon Japan. The price over there is 25,901 Yen which is about $300 USD.
Details (in English anyways) are pretty scarce but here is a video (WMV unfortunately) that shows it in action. It’s in Japanese of course, but you will get the idea. Here’s Fujitsu Japan’s page about it too.
What do you think of the S1300? Obviously I’ll post more info as it becomes available.
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