Desktop Scanners - 12 Days Of Paperless Gifts

Giftbox This is Day 1 in a 12 Post series: 12 Days Of Paperless Gifts. If you know someone who could use some help going paperless, or if you deserve to treat yourself, this is the place. If you don’t, feel free to ignore this series. Normal DocumentSnap posts will still be coming!

If you know someone that needs to go paperless, it all starts with a decent scanner.

All-in-ones are OK, but if your special someone has a lot of paper on a regular basis, they’ll really benefit from a real desktop scanner.

Part of the problem may be that the scanner that came with their all-in-one is just too slow and only scans one side of a page at a time. Trying to tackle a stack of paper becomes more frustrating than getting kids toys out of those accursed packages.

The solution? A proper desktop document scanner. They’re designed to be fast and to rip through a stack of paper faster than your crazy aunt hits the red wine. Here are a few options:

Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 & S1500M

Who is it for?: Windows (S1500) and Mac (S1500M) users who want to go paperless quickly and easily. Individuals and businesses that have a lot of paper to scan.
How fast is it?: 20 pages per minute, double sided.
How much paper can it hold?: 50 pages.
What software does it come with?:
ScanSnap Organizer 4.0 (S1500)
Adobe Acrobat 9 Standard (S1500)
Adobe Acrobat 8 for Mac (S1500M)
ABBYY FineReader For ScanSnap (Both)
CardMinder 4.0 (S1500)
CardIris 3.6 (S1500M)
Where can I buy it?
S1500:
Amazon US, Newegg Canada, Amazon UK
S1500M:
Amazon US, Newegg Canada, Amazon UK

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Epson GT-S50

Who is it for?: Windows or Mac users who need a TWAIN scanner or need to scan plastic cards.
How fast is it?: 25 pages per minute, double sided.
How much paper can it hold?: 75 pages.
What software does it come with?:
Nuance PaperPort.
Where can I buy it?
Amazon

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Neatco NeatDesk

Who is it for?: Windows or Mac users who want to be able to scan and export receipts.
How fast is it?: 24 pages per minute, double sided.
How much paper can it hold?: 50 pages.
What software does it come with?:
NeatWorks.
Where can I buy it?
Amazon For Windows, Amazon For Mac

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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.