On 2009-11-07 08:57:11 +0000, T i m said:

> On Sat, 7 Nov 2009 08:24:36 +0000, Steve Hodgson 
> wrote:
> 
>>> The S5100 seems to tick all the right boxen, 50 sheet feeder, duplex,
>>> credit card to A3, auto lots_of_things etc etc.
>>> 
>>> Anyone got / played-with similar? Whadya think please?
>> 
>> I got the ScanSnap 1500M a few months ago for exactly the same reason 
>> as you suggest
> 
> And did it do for you what you hoped? I mean, are you sorta 'paper
> free' now?

Not completely but it certainly reduced the amount of paper that needs 
to be held on to.

> 
>> but also for convenience compared to a flatbed.
> 
> Whilst I can see that would be good for most things I don't think I'd
> get ride of all my flat-bed scanners. Do I understand that the res
> isn't as good (as most flat-bed scanners can be set to) and what if
> you need to scan one page from a book etc.

Agree. It's good for most things but there are few things that are 
better on a flatbed. The resolution of 600dpi is a bit too course for 
very small, detailed documents. I won't be replacing my dedicated film 
scanner either.

The big plus with the ScanSnap is there's no setup. It sits connected 
to the USB hub and if I want a quick scan I fire up the software and 
press the scanner button. The software takes care of multiple pages, a 
mixture of blank and single sides plus text orientation automatically.

>> It's very fast and convenient and although not officially 10.6 
>> compatible works well here.
> 
> FWIMBW There is a patch for 10.6 here.
> 
> http://www.fujitsu.com/emea/products/scansnap/support-en-20090828-1.html

Thanks, I have that. I think there's a full update coming soon too.

> 
> I wonder if there is any difference between the Win / Mac versions,
> other than the bundled software etc

Probably just the colour :)

> Do you have a PC there?
> Could you try it on that (just out of interest)? (And if you can and
> do then thanks in any case).

My Windows/Linux PC went in the bin a few months ago, not having been 
powered up since 2006 !

> 
>> The OCR software works very well and seems accurate.
> 
>> If I have any criticism it's that the PDF files produced are relatively 
>> 'fat' (big files).
> 
> I guess that's not so much a problem now you can get 1TB for 3d?

True, but it doesn't seem as efficient as it could be. Occasionally I 
slim down the files with Acrobat (comes with the scanner) and they go 
down to about a third of the size with no appreciable degradation.
-- 
Cheers,

Steve

The reply-to email address is a spam trap.
Email steve 'at' shodgson 'dot' org 'dot' uk

On Sat, 7 Nov 2009 18:35:00 +0000, Steve Hodgson 
wrote:


>> And did it do for you what you hoped? I mean, are you sorta 'paper
>> free' now?
>
>Not completely but it certainly reduced the amount of paper that needs 
>to be held on to.

Ok.
>
>> 
>> Whilst I can see that would be good for most things I don't think I'd
>> get ride of all my flat-bed scanners. Do I understand that the res
>> isn't as good (as most flat-bed scanners can be set to) and what if
>> you need to scan one page from a book etc.
>
>Agree. It's good for most things but there are few things that are 
>better on a flatbed. The resolution of 600dpi is a bit too course for 
>very small, detailed documents. I won't be replacing my dedicated film 
>scanner either.

Scanners everywhere!
>
>The big plus with the ScanSnap is there's no setup. It sits connected 
>to the USB hub and if I want a quick scan I fire up the software and 
>press the scanner button. The software takes care of multiple pages, a 
>mixture of blank and single sides plus text orientation automatically.

So say you were digitising a 100 page magazine I assume you would load
it in two chunks, what would you get out (by default I mean)? How much
control would you have over the process?
>
>> 
>>> If I have any criticism it's that the PDF files produced are relatively 
>>> 'fat' (big files).
>> 
>> I guess that's not so much a problem now you can get 1TB for 3d?
>
>True, but it doesn't seem as efficient as it could be. Occasionally I 
>slim down the files with Acrobat (comes with the scanner) and they go 
>down to about a third of the size with no appreciable degradation.

Understood.

Cheers, T i m