Most of you know that I typically use Macs more than Windows, but in the process of doing some consulting work (more on that later), I have been spending more time using the Windows programs that come with the Fujitsu ScanSnap.
For starters, I want to say that I really like ScanSnap Organizer. I wish the ScanSnap came with a Mac version. However, I came across what to me was a pretty weird issue.
I went to search some of my scanned-in PDFs and the Search box was greyed out!
After doing some digging, I found out why. It turns out that surprisingly, ScanSnap Organizer doesn’t have PDF searching capabilities of its own. It needs to use either Adobe Acrobat or Windows Desktop Search.
For ScanSnap S1300 users on Windows XP (raising hand), this is a bit of a problem because Adobe Acrobat doesn’t come with the scanner.
So, here is what you need to do:
If You Use Windows Vista Or Windows 7
You shouldn’t have this problem because Windows 7 and Vista have Windows Search built in.
So, you can use either the built in Windows Search, or if you have a ScanSnap S1500, you can use Adobe Acrobat that comes with the scanner.
If You Use Windows XP
You can download the appropriate version of Windows Search 4.0 here.
If you don’t want to use Windows Search, you’ll have to use Adobe Acrobat. If you have a ScanSnap S1500 you’re set as it comes with Acobat. If not, you’ll need to get your hands on Adobe Acrobat 7.0 or later to search within ScanSnap Organizer.
More details on all this can be found if you search ScanSnap Organizer Help for “File Search”.
For the S1300 peeps who have Windows Vista or Windows 7, can you confirm that ScanSnap Organizer search is not greyed out for you without Acrobat installed? Please leave a comment and let us know.
