Comments on: Follow up Review of the ScanSnap S510M

By: Kees-Jan

Kees-Jan — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 01:46:37 +0000

Hi, I was just reading the reviews. I bought the ScanSnap fo MAC and is absolutely worth its money. Amazing speed and impressive paper feeding control. I have tried all kinds of paper and it does very well. It is easy to create a custom paper scan size and uses less space to create the pdf. In terms of work flow I scan all my docs on the go, place it in an "OCR" folder, including books (1-125 pages at the time) and than at night run the Abbyy Finereader. It detects different languages . (in my case Spanish, Dutch and of course English) It does a great job. In the morning all is ready to be moved.
I did wish I could automate this more. Maybe as you say in automator, but the scanner is faster than the OCR software. I also hoped that when it takes 2 pages I could stop and place it right and than click continue… It does a very good job detecting if it takes 2 sheets but just asks if you want to continue or abort.. I have found no other way that start over with the batch. Just another cool tip. A friend of mine set up the Apple text reader so it reads RTF (need to paste pdf OCR text into RTF file) in Automator and converts the text into "audio". Great way to listen to books that I scan.

By: fc

fc — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:21:21 +0000

To be honest, Abbyy Finereader seems to do a much better job than Adobe’s included OCR solution, in most cases…

By: Gardar

Gardar — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 11:13:53 +0000

My ScanSnap S510M bought in September last year has proved to be a remarkable tool.
I had 5 huge boxes of documents in my cellar, now they are gone and everything is filed up in “Documents” on my computer.
I have a recent iMac and there are no problems. But on hindsight I should have given my scanned documents some more categorical names.
Now when I try to use my SnapScan with my recent MacBook I will not recognize pdfÂ´s but evertyhing else works ok
Does anyone know the solution to this problem ?

By: abbyy_finereader_4mac_user

abbyy_finereader_4mac_user — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:16:27 +0000

Actually, S510M works perfect with ABBYY fine reader 3.0 for Mac.
When you open the ScanSnap manager, –> Application –> select ABBYY Scan2Pdf

ABBYY scan2pdf runs automatic ocr recognition and saves your file under the original filename but with the OCR result in the background. Now you have a searchable text file.
You can also drag an “not yet OCRed” pdf into the application ABBYY Scan2Pdf.
For those who have a ScanSnap S500M, the ABBY Scan2Pdf is not part of the bundle. But you can download ABBYY Finereader 3.0 OCR for Mac at ABBYY website as follows:
http://www.abbyyeu.com/download/ArchivRetail/RetailProducts/FineReaderMAC/ScanSnap/ScanSnap_V21L10.pkg.zip

By: MT

MT — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 21:11:43 +0000

I bought this from Amazon just before Christmas after reading many reviews. I must say it was hard to spend $495 on a scanner when you can buy a cheapie for $79. But wow, am I glad I spent the cash. This scanner rocks, especially with the bundled OCR software. Yeah, Fine Reader is a little slow, even on my dual-core 2.4Ghz MacBook Pro, but by that I mean it takes about 10 seconds per page to produce a fully-searchable PDF. The scanner itself rips through a page in less two seconds (both sides!), so Fine Reader becomes the bottleneck if you you want to OCR a large number of documents. But it’s not like you have to stand there and supervise. Just dump a stack of papers in the feeder, press the button and walk away. If you value your time, buy it.

Some people have asked how well it scans photos. Great! The ScanSnap software includes the option to scan directly into iPhoto. I’ve already scanned hundreds of old snapshots that have been sitting in boxes for ages because it was too much hassle to scan them one-at-a-time on my old flatbed scanner.

Finally, I just want to mention something I haven’t seen in any review. The scanner is also bundled with CardIris business card scanning software (www.irislink.com). This software does an OK job of scanning and OCRing business cards which you can then import into Address Book or pretty much any other contact manager or database/spreadsheet app. Unfortunately it’s a PowerPC app, but it runs fine under Rosetta on Intel. Not a reason to buy this scanner, but a nice bonus.

By: Brad

Brad — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:32:11 +0000

I bought this scanner and set it aside a year ago with good intentions to use. Just hooked it up today and am ticked off that I waited this long. Works as advertised, is fast and the OCR of Fine Reader hasn’t failed me yet (even scanning deposit slips from my bank with dot matrix type). Last time I make that procrastination mistake! Highly recommended!

By: Sonia Coleman

Sonia Coleman — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:23:10 +0000

Terry,
Thanks for the excellent review and detailed explanation of the Scansnap. I recently bought one after readng your blog, and I love it!

I wanted to give an update regarding OCR: the ScanSnap Manager software has been updated with a button to OCR the document using Abbyy Fine Reader out of the box with no additional settings adjustments.

Thanks again for your excellent work!

By: Wyn Knapp

Wyn Knapp — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 13:56:16 +0000

Thank you for the comments on this site. I just bought fujitsu S510M for use with Intel imac. From what I can conclude, Acrobat 8 will not recognize scanner for purposes of scanning documents–either initially or for appending purposes.

Do you think that I am correct?

By: Terry White

Terry White — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:18:50 +0000

Vivek, You were absolutely right! The Abbyy Fine Reader disk was included and I just overlooked it. I’ve installed it and it’s working great!

By: Pol Pot Pie

Pol Pot Pie — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:59:07 +0000

Also, I highly recommend (not as far as OCR, but for keeping track of receipts, etc.) ReceiptWallet http://www.receiptwallet.com/
They have really embraced the ScanSnap and make it that much more useful than just Acrobatâ€¦

By: Brandon

Brandon — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 17:31:39 +0000

Mr. White,

I must say, I just stumbled upon your blog, and I really enjoy it. As a computer information systems major and technology enthusiast, I’m a bit envious of all the cool toys you get to experience on a daily basis. I wonder if I could get a job with adobe after I graduate!

Thank you for your blogs.

By: David Edwards

David Edwards — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:44:06 +0000

We have several ScanSnap fi-5110E0XM scanners in my office. This scanner is the immediate predecessor to the one you reviewed. I have been unable to tell from the specs or the review what if anything was upgraded with the newer model, except the price.

The one I have was commonly available for about $300 before it was discontinued. I even picked up some open box units for the low $200 range.

Anyway, nice review.

By: Barrie

Barrie — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:37:46 +0000

How well does it scan slippery paper (as in pages from a magazine)? Is it able to pick up one page at a time?

By: Terry White

Terry White — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:37:09 +0000

Vivek, Thanks! I shall look through my install disks. I thought I installed everything.

By: Lance

Lance — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:25:12 +0000

The solution you need is Devonthink Pro Office.