A Great "Pro-Sumer" Scanner | ScanSnap S500 Color Duplex Scanner

Fujitsu Scanner | ScanSnap S500 Color Duplex Scanner

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	• ScanSnap S500 Color Duplex Scanner FUJITSU FUJITSU average customer review:based on 3 reviews view larger image
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The S500 revolutionizes my work

I had the S500 since it first came out couple years ago. I scan in all my work and personal documnts and throw away the paper copy. I can actually walk around my office now.

The S500 is fast, convenient to use, and has a small footprint. I can't imagine how I can organize my stuff without it.

A Great "Pro-Sumer" Scanner

Summary:

I've had this scanner for seven months, and it is terrific. It has (literally) revolutionized the way I think about paperwork and documents in my home office. A friend recommended it to me after using the predecessor for many years, and he and I both recommend it very highly.

Speed and Quality:

The ScanSnap S500 is a great scanner for documents, bills, paperwork, etc., and the occasional photo. It is fast and has excellent scan quality, which is selectable. I choose to run at a moderate resolution scan, since mostly I scan bills and documents, and it scans faster this way (and uses less disk space). Scan quality/speed is user-selectable, though not on a per-document basis - if you want a different resolution, you have to change the default scan quality, do your scan, and change it back. But I've chosen a moderate-range which works well for nearly everything I need, so I rarely have to change the settings.

Note that the highest-quality scans use quite a bit more disk space than lower-quality, so you'll want to evaluate how important the quality is to you. But if you need the quality, it's there for you.

Size:

The unit has an amazingly small form factor. The photos make it look bigger, but once it's on your desk it uses little space. And if you take off the bottom paper guide it's even more compact.

Ease of Setup:

Very simple and easy to set up. It plugs in via USB 2.0, just hit the Scan button and off it goes. It signals the attached PC, which initiates the scan operation (and the optional Character Recognition - see below).

Included Software:

One of the great bonuses is that this product includes a fully-functional version of Adobe Acrobat. This is a great "plus", because the documents are stored in PDF format making them easy to access and search later. And I've found many uses for Acrobat that I never imagined before. (It probably is part of the reason this scanner is expensive, but a good copy of Acrobat will run you over $250 by itself.) You can save it to other formats, but I've never tried it; PDF does everything I need.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is also included. This has proven to be a great add-on. This product identifies text, and includes it as part of the PDF document. This allows you to search scanned PDF documents for text - which is a HUGE plus! The only downside is that the scanning is slow and takes a while to complete - a dialog box shows you the progress, but you can cancel the OCR if you don't want to wait. A faster PC will really help here, since it's CPU-intensive.

Automatic Feeder:

If I had any complaints, it's with the automatic feeder. It jams from time to time until you learn the tricks of how to make it feed well. Yes, you can feed 20-30 pages at one time, but just dropping a bunch of paper will result in multiple pages coming through at one time (and the scanner can detect this, and signal a paper jam). Here's how to avoid this:

Rifle the page ends before scanning. You want to actually BEND the pages significantly, so that each page has a good "kink" in each one. You'll think you're way overdoing it, but trust me - just a little "ruffle" on the edges won't do it. By rifling or twisting each page slightly, it feeds most documents easily and automatically.

Is this a nuisance? Yes. A big one? No. I've grown accustomed to it, and most of the time I'm only scanning 1-2 pages anyway.

Don't try to feed documents with holes in them, or which are very thick or are adhesive-backed - they'll jam. It's easy to clear a jam if it happens, but the page might get a little bunched up in the process. Also, vit only handles pages 8.5 inches wide, so don't plan on using it for 11x17 or poster-size docs unless you want to cut it into smaller sizes. But it does smaller size documents (post cards, receipts, etc.) just fine.

How I Use It:

I now scan every document that comes in - bills, invoices, check stubs, financial records, you name it - and shred the original afterward. No more piles of documents to file every December. No more digging for old financial records in boxes - it's all online and ready to go. Just be sure to back it all up carefully. If security is a concern, you can apply a password to the PDF documents as you save them, to provide a measure of protection. It has made my office nearly paperless, except for the shredder bin. :)

This is a great scanner for the "Pro-Sumer", the consumer with a need for professional-style handling of documents, or even the small office or business with reasonable document needs. For bigger offices, with large volumes to scan, I'd consider a more professional document-fed unit, but for many people the ScanSnap S500 is the perfect solution. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

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Fujitsu Scanner

For a busy CPA, especially during the busy season, it has been a tremendous help in maintaining client records effetively and efficiently.