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Dave Winer, legendary blog and RSS pioneer, recently blogged about picking up a Fujitsu ScanSnap.

He wanted to show a picture of it, so he did a comparison that I wouldn’t have thought of:

Photo by scriptingnews

It looks like he picked up the ScanSnap S300M, but its the same size as the new ScanSnap S1300 so the comparison still holds.

So, if you were ever wondering how big a mobile ScanSnap is compared to a Dr. Pepper can, there you go!

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.

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.

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.

Recently, Neatco was awesome enough to send me a review copy of the NeatDesk scanner with the bundled NeatWorks software. I liked both products (here’s the NeatDesk review and NeatWorks review), but since I already have a ScanSnap S300M here, and really liked Neatco’s software, I wanted to try using my ScanSnap as a scanner with NeatWorks as the software.

This is possible because Neatco will sell NeatWorks for Mac separately. Unfortunately, I don’t believe they currently sell the Windows version standalone.

The guys at Neatco are smart. Instead of being all Apple-ish and saying “our software will only work with our product!”, they recognize that people who already own ScanSnaps, and there are a lot of us, could benefit from NeatWorks as well so why not make some cash from us too. Brilliant.

Integrating NeatWorks with the ScanSnap is incredibly easy. In fact, they’ve added a menu item right into the program to set it up for you!

I made this video that goes through the steps:

In a nutshell:

• Start ScanSnap Manager running
• In NeatWorks, go to Scan | Fujitsu ScanSnap Settings

• A screen will come up telling you that ScanSnap Manager is running, and there is a button saying “Configure and restart ScanSnap Manager”. Click it.

• Once ScanSnap Manager restarts, you’ll have a new Profile called Scan to NeatWorks and when you check the settings, it’s configured to scan to NeatWorks.app

• Scan a document in your ScanSnap, and it should kick it to NeatWorks for you to process. Done!

That’s it! Like I said, incredibly easy.

Is anyone out there already using your ScanSnap with NeatWorks? How’s the integration going?

UPDATE: I have tested NeatWorks using the ScanSnap S1300 and S1100. You can read about the NeatWorks ScanSnap test here.

I have received a number of questions recently about the software that is included with the Fujitsu ScanSnap. For example, why does the ScanSnap come with both Abbyy FineReader and Adobe Acrobat? Aren’t they both for doing OCR?

I suspect part of the reason that this question comes up is because of my posts about my ScanSnap workflow and my Adobe Acrobat OCR Applescript. Is all that necessary?

Let me start by saying that I personally have the ScanSnap S300M. The S300M comes neither with Abbyy FineReader not with Adobe Acrobat. If you have the S1500 or S1500M, your scanner will come with both and doing OCR is much more integrated than with the S300M, so my post-scan processing fun may not be necessary.

So What’s The Difference?

The ScanSnap comes with a special version of Abbyy FineReader called FineReader for ScanSnap. They’ve integrated that with ScanSnap Organizer, so if you are using the built-in automatic OCR’ing, that is what it is using.

If all you care about is having your PDFs searchable and don’t mind performing the OCR right after scanning, then the supplied FineReader is probably all you need.

To my mind, there are basically two main reasons why you will want to use Adobe Acrobat:

• You want to do PDF editing after the fact
• You want to batch your OCR after the fact

PDF Editing

So you have your scanned PDF. Now what? If you want to remove/rearrange pages and do a whole ton of other editing functions, Acrobat is a great tool. It is most definitely not just for making a PDF searchable.

You can see a bunch more information for Adobe Acrobat 9 (included with the ScanSnap 1500) and Acrobat 8 (included with the ScanSnap 1500M). You can see from the price that it’s a pretty good deal that this software is included with the ScanSnap.

Batch OCR

If you have a whole bunch of documents to scan in, it may be annoying to scan, sit there and wait for it to OCR, scan, OCR, scan, OCR, and so on. Some people prefer to scan all their documents to PDF in one shot, and then OCR them all at once. You can use Acrobat to do that instead of the included FineReader.

So there you have it, some of the differences between the two. What are some of the reasons you use one over the other?

Reader T. Joseph Carter wrote in the following question about using a MacBook Air (with only 1 USB port) and a ScanSnap S300M.

I’m considering a ScanSnap S300M to carry with me–but the laptop I carry is the MacBook Air, which has just one USB port. It’s much higher power than the average USB port (made to power the Superdrive Apple sells for it), but I’m wondering if someone’s managed to get the S300M running off the MacBook Air’s single USB port.

Fujitsu says that it simply requires two USB ports, but the answer sounds suspiciously like a level one support response. I used to have a Palm PDA sync/charge cable that ended in a barrel connector and mini-USB. It wasn’t as good as using the AC adapter, but it worked if you needed to power the thing off USB.

Anyone tried this for the MacBook Air by chance? Can you suggest a good place to ask if not?

Thanks, I’m buried in paper here!

Since the MacBook Air has only a single USB port and since the ScanSnap needs two USB plugins if you are not using the AC adaptor, I am not sure of the best way to get this to work.
Has anyone tried it out or found some creative workaround to get the ScanSnap S300M working with a MacBook Air without the AC adaptor? Leave a comment and let us know your thoughts.

Often when there is a review or article about the Fujitsu ScanSnap, there are commenters saying that they already have a multifunction all-in-one or flatbed scanner, so why would they need to pay for something that just scans?

I’ve decided to outline some of the pros and cons of each.

Multifunction All-In-One/Flatbed

• Often cheaper – You can usually find a multifunction or flatbed scanner for much less money than a ScanSnap
• Can scan books/3D Objects – Since it’s flatbed, if you can put it on the scanner you can scan it. The ScanSnap can only scan flat things
• TWAIN compatible – Most of these scanners are TWAIN compatible, which the ScanSnap is not. This means you can initiate the scan from other applications
• Manual unless you have a document feeder type – Many flatbed scanners do not have a document feeder, or even if they do you have to manually flip the paper over to scan both sides.
• Flat – Because the ScanSnap’s paper path is not 100% straight, if you are scanning photos etc. it may be better to do it on a flatbed

Fujitsu ScanSnap

• Scans both pages at same time – Don’t underestimate the usefulness of this. When you have a lot of paper to go through, having to do just one pass and bring in both sides at once can be a huge time-saver
• Discards blank pages – When you are doing double-sided scanning, having it discard blank pages automatically is both a time and a space saver
• Handles different size paper – With some flatbed/multifunctions, in the rare case where they have a document feeder, you have to have all the paper the same size when you feed in a stack. The ScanSnap will handle a stack of different sized pages no problem.
• Smaller footprint – Depending on whether you get the desktop model like the S1500 or a portable one S300, it is 1/3 or more smaller than a flatbed
• Portable versions can power from USB – If you have the S300 or S300M, you can run it off the USB instead of plugging it into the wall. This can be handy if you need to be portable or want to scan somewhere where a plug isn’t handy
• Incredibly easy to use with 1 button – Again, don’t underestimate the usefulness here. If something is not simple you (or at least I) won’t do it on a regular basis. Throwing the paper in and hitting a button is as simple as it gets.

So which is better, a ScanSnap or an all-in-one?

Like most things, it depends on what you want to do with it. If you want to scan lots of books or photos, a flatbed is probably a better choice. Something like the Canon MX850 is probably good, because it at least has a document feeder for those times you do want to scan some paper.

However, if you are wanting to scan documents on a regular basis, my personal opinion is that a Fujitsu ScanSnap is the way to go. The speed, ease of use, and included software will make a big difference.

Have I forgotten any pros and cons for either? Leave a comment and let us know.

Photo by Legozilla

While the Fujitsu ScanSnap might be super-easy to use with only one button, there is a lot going under the hood to make it work that way. When you have problems like paper jams or more than one page getting pulled through, it might be time to replace (or at least clean) your consumables.

What On Earth is a Consumable?

A lot of people don’t know this, but there are a few parts in your ScanSnap that should be replaced every once in a while to make sure that it keeps running in top shape. Consumable is just a fancy word for those parts.

How Do I Know When Its Time To Replace?

The most obvious answer is when you start having problems. If you start getting multiple paper feed problems or paper jams, that’s an alarm.

However, the ScanSnap Manager does tell you when it is getting time to replace two parts in particular: the Pick Roller and the Pad Assembly.

Checking Your Consumables

The screenshots you see here are for the Mac, but it is the same concept with Windows. Just right click on the System Tray instead of the Dock.

First, right-click on ScanSnap Manager (with the ScanSnap open so that it is powered on) and choose Check Consumable Supplies.

Once there, you will be shown some useful information.

This screenshot is from the ScanSnap S300M, so your values may be different. On the left you see the “Target Value to change supplies”. For the S300M, Fujitsu recommends that you change the Pick roller every 100,000 sheets and the Pad Assembly every 10,000 sheets.

On the right, the first box is the total number of pages that this ScanSnap has scanned. The bottom two boxes are the number of scans that have been done since the Pick Roller and the Pad Assembly have been replaced. You can see that I have not yet needed to replace them.

The reset buttons are so that when you do replace a part, you can hit “Reset” to set it back to zero for that new part.

Which Part Do I Need?

The easiest way to find your part is to Google the part number. The prices vary wildly but are not too expensive. Click on the part number to do a Google search to find places in your area that do mail order. You can also ask the place where you bought the ScanSnap too, but I am guessing online is cheaper.

Pick and Pad What?

A Pick Roller is what does the pulling into the document feeder. It works with the Pad Assembly to pull the paper in. The Pad Assembly is like the brake pad in your car. It is what separates the pages.
If either the Pick Roller or Pad Assembly are worn down or excessively dirty, you are going to get multiple pages pulled through the ScanSnap.

Cleaning and Replacing The Pick Roller And Pad Assembly

The best way to clean and/or replace the parts is to follow the instructions in the Operator’s Guide. If you can’t find yours, here are links them on Fujitsu’s website. You’ll want to look at Chapter 8 and 9.

• ScanSnap S300 Operator’s Guide
• ScanSnap S300M Operator’s Guide
• ScanSnap S510M Operator’s Guide
• ScanSnap S510M Operator’s Guide
• ScanSnap general documentation page

How many pages does your ScanSnap’s Total Page Count show?

A while ago I picked up a Fujitsu ScanSnap S300M. In case you’re also thinking of getting one, I made a video of the “unboxing” where I take it out of the box and go through everything that is included in there.

One note: at one point I pull out a USB cable and say that I’m not sure what it is (like I said, this is a true unboxing!). Obviously it’s the USB power cable that you can use if you want to plug it into your computer instead of into the wall to get power. Duh.

I’ll have a full review of the ScanSnap S300M soon now that I have been using it for a while, so stay tuned for that.