Best Document Scanner??

[fansill]

Good Evening All,

I have been trying to figure out how to conduct more of my business out of the office and inside my coach. I believe that I can do this easier with the use of a document scanner. This way I can scan the volumes of documents each of my cases generate and keep them neat and tidy inside my lap-top. I can retrieve them while on the road and email or phone my clients for consultations.

I have narrowed the choices down to ...

Visioneer Strobe 500

Fujitsu Snap Scan s1500

NeatDesk Scanner

They are all document scanners vs. the more traditional flatbed scanners and therefore will be easier to quickly scan docs of all sizes.

Does anyone have any experience with any of these models or have any other suggestions for me to research??

Thanks in advance for your opinions.

Faith

[Harry B]

I use the Fujitsu S300 (portable version of the S1500) and it has worked flawless for me for several years. I think you would be well served to have your documents stored in .PDF format instead of a proprietary format to make sure you always retain access to your scanned documents. dual sided scanning is a great feature as well, specially if you scan in multiple documents at once

[Iron Man]

Do you want to scan the document or will you want to be able to search for information inside the document after scanning?

[alvinc]

No experience with the scanners you mentioned.

I presume you will do the scanning at home. Why not use one of the all-in-one inkjet or laser printers that can scan and do OCR. I used an earlier version of the HP Officejet 6500A Plus (E710n) to scan and OCR 30 pages at a time.

Dedicated scanners will also work, but tend to be more expensive because they are not mainstream. On the other hand be sure to compare the times to scan a page and do the OCR conversion.

[scgator]

We use a MX340 multifunction from CANON; copies, prints, faxes, scans and is wireless. I have had it for about a year now, and it works flawless.

[mactom]

I use the Fujitsu Scan Snap on an iMac. Works very well to generate searchable PDF's. Creation of docs in MS Office formats is a bit more problematic: formatting rarely comes out right.

Mostly I use it to turn paper into searchable PDF's which I keep as permanent records, and shred the paper.

It folds up quickly and easily. Very compact when not in use. You will probably still need some kind of flatbed scanner for stuff you cannot feed through the document scanner (e.g., books, cardboard, stuff that is too big). I bought a flat bed scanner for that purpose, but it has been sitting here unused for several months now; only the oddest of the docs I need to scan will not go through the Scan Snap.

It can jam if you try to feed too many docs at once. So if I have a REALLY large doc (lots of pages or thick pages), I just give the scanner a smaller pile of pages, and when it is nearly done with them, drop a few more in.

Check out the reviews of the Scan Snap on Amazon.

[rjudice]

I use the ScanSnap s1500 on a MacBook Pro with OCR to DevonThink Office Pro. We are completely paperless with easily searchable documents. I've scanned everything from receipts to books. The scanner is a work horse. Would be lost without it.

[wa8yxm]

Last time I had to scan a document I used a digital camera (high pixel count) and it worked great.. There is a type of book scanner that is, in fact, a high megapixel camera on a mount like an overhead projector.. I basically did it by hand.