Software Review - ScanSnap S1300i And Friends

Software Review – ScanSnap S1300i And Friends

Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i ClosedA few days ago, I wrote a hardware review of the newly-released ScanSnap S1300i. Today I will cover some of the new software that is being released along with the new scanner.

One thing to note: this software is not exclusive to the S1300i. If you have a ScanSnap S1100, a S1500, a S1500M, or a S1300, the software is available via Fujitsu’s Online Update feature. See here for instructions on that.

Scan To Dropbox

If you use the Quick Menu, there is a new icon for Scan To Dropbox. If you use ScanSnap Manager Profiles, as I do, on the Application tab it will show up as a new destination option.

ScanSnap Scan To Dropbox
ScanSnap Scan To Dropbox

When you scan using Scan To Dropbox, it will bring up a preview window. You can see that in the destination folder, it has created a new folder under your Dropbox folder called ScanSnap. You can change this if you want.

S1300i Dropbox folder
S1300i Dropbox folder

If you don’t want that Preview window to show up every time, you can check Do not show this dialog again on the Preview window, or in the ScanSnap Manager profile on the Application tab, you can click the Application Settings button and un-check Show Preview.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself “I don’t get it… what is the difference between using the new Scan To Dropbox profile and just scanning to a folder in my Dropbox like I did before?”

As far as I can tell, the answer is… nothing. It seems to do the same thing. I can only imagine that this feature is targeted at less tech-savvy users who want to be able to scan to Dropbox, but aren’t comfortable messing around with profiles and folders. If you are a Quick Menu user, I can see how it would be helpful.

Scan To Mobile – Android Style

There has been ScanSnap Connect app for iOS since October 2011, and the then-new Scan To Mobile functionality allowed you to scan from your computer-attached ScanSnap to your iPad or iPhone.

Fujitsu has just released the same thing for Android, and it is available in the Google Play store.

Once you install the app on your Android device, it works basically the same as the iOS apps. See my earlier post on using ScanSnap Connect to scan to iOS for how that all works.

I was able to scan a document to my Samsung Galaxy Player with no problems.

ScanSnap Connect Android
ScanSnap Connect Android

Once you’ve scanned a document in, you can open it to view it, rename it, move it to an SD card or other location, or use Android’s excellent application interoperability to send it to another app.

ScanSnap Folder

This is the feature that I have been really looking forward to playing with, because as I said earlier, it has been hard for me to wrap my head around what the heck it is.

Here is how Fujitsu describes it:

Scan ‘outside-of-the-box’ into virtually any Windows application or cloud service (for PC users). This new feature essentially replicates ScanSnap as a Windows folder which you can open from your favorite software and web applications allowing you to automatically attach/upload the digital files produced by the ScanSnap S1300i for the ultimate in “Scan there!” versatility.

So, yeah. This needs some investigation. By the way, this is a Windows only feature at the time of this writing. Hopefully that changes for us Mac people.

Let’s say you are in an application and you want to scan an attach a document. It can be any application really: a web app, Quickbooks, anything that supports attaching something.

Normally what you would have to do is scan the document to your computer, then in the application, you’d have to find and then attach it.

With the ScanSnap Folder, you can do all this in one step and initiate the scan from the application.

In my example, I’ll use Gmail. I compose a message and then hit the Attach a file link. The normal pop up appears for me to select my file, but you will see there is a new ScanSnap Folder entry. I’ll click that.

ScanSnap Folder
ScanSnap Folder

At first, nothing shows up. No problem though. I’ll put my document in my ScanSnap[1] and hit the Scan button.

A ScanSnap Folder window pops up. I can rename the file, save the file for safekeeping, or make it a JPG. If I don’t want to be bothered with this again, I can check Do not show this dialog again.

ScanSnap Folder Window
ScanSnap Folder Window

When I hit save, my new PDF shows up in my ScanSnap Folder, uh, folder, and I can hit Open to attach it.

Gmail ScanSnap Document Attached
Gmail ScanSnap Document Attached

As I mentioned earlier, this does not just work with web apps. Anywhere on your computer that you can attach a file should be able to do this. I tested it with Windows Live Messenger and was able to send a document to a friend.

I am not sure that Fujitsu would say this straight-out, but I have to think this is a bit of a response to the “ScanSnap doesn’t support TWAIN!” objection. It seems to me that this almost does it one better. Not only does it allow you to initiate a scan from an application, but it works from anywhere, not just a TWAIN-supporting application.

It’ll be interesting to see how this feature is used.

If you want to customize how the ScanSnap Folder behaves, right-click on the ScanSnap icon in your system tray, choose ScanSnap Folder Settings. You can customize how the scans will be done using a ScanSnap Manager-like interface.

ScanSnap Folder Settings
ScanSnap Folder Settings

One more thing about the ScanSnap Folder – this is a temporary folder. The files will be removed after you attach them. If you are wanting to keep this document that you are scanning, make sure to check the Save scanned images to file checkbox.

Wrap Up

All-in-all, this software update by Fujitsu is interesting, and if you have a S1300i or any 1000-series ScanSnap, I recommend hitting Online Update. Now if only ScanSnap Folder could come to the Mac.


  1. In the name of science, I am doing this with an Online-Updated ScanSnap S1300 to see how this works with an older scanner.  ↩

About the Author

Brooks Duncan helps individuals and small businesses go paperless. He's been an accountant, a software developer, a manager in a very large corporation, and has run DocumentSnap since 2008. You can find Brooks on Twitter at @documentsnap or @brooksduncan. Thanks for stopping by.

Leave a Reply 2 comments

Audrey - April 3, 2017 Reply

Hi! I was wondering if there’s a staple function? Like combining various scanned pages into one document?
Thanks so much!

Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i Review | Tips To Learn How To Go Paperless | DocumentSnap Paperless Blog - July 5, 2012 Reply

[…] Fujitsu sent me a review unit to check out, so this review is split into two parts. Today I will cover the hardware itself, and Part 2 covers the new software that was released with the S1300i. […]

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