LAPTOP i7

Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 Instant PDF Sheet Fed Scanner For PC

I have never had a dedicated document scanner before. In the past, I used the Auto-document feeder on my all-in-one printer/scanner/fax machines to scan documents into adobe acrobat. That meant for each batch of papers, I needed to set the color/resolution/paper size/quality settings and then work through Acrobat in order to save each file. It worked, but it was slow going.

Then I bought this new scansnap 1500, based on the ratings of the earlier model (the scansnap 510). I installed only the main program to my computer (the software also includes OCR programs, organizational programs, and acrobat 9, which I already have). I hooked up the scanner and stuck in a stack of old notes I took from some college courses--some notes were in color, some were b&w, some on two sides, some on one side, and some of the pages were upside down. I hit the only button on the machine (SCAN), and to my sheer amazement, it started flying through the stack of notes without any additional prompts or effort. It then automatically saved my file as a pdf--all of the pages were in order, color pages were in color, b&w pages were in b&w, etc. The only issue I noticed was that if there were any marks whatsoever on the back side of my note papers, it included those blank pages in the file.

Review about Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 Instant PDF Sheet-Fed Scanner for PC

I purchased this scanner as a first step in creating an electronic filing system for a home office. As I accumulated 20 filing cabinet drawers of paper documents going paperless seemed to be an answer.

Purchase of the Fujitsu S1500 was based on the numerous 5 star reviews. I am reasonably tech literate and have used the scanner for about 2 weeks. Here are my initial impressions:

Pros -

1. Speed: This scanner seems blazingly fast. Not a resource hog. Will scan duplex 20-25ppm at default settings on Win2K/1. 8mhz/1gb platform.

2. Scan quality very good at all settings.

3. Size and looks: Small desk footprint. Looks great open or closed.

4. Excellent paper feeding as long as documents are same size and 20# or greater paper weight.

Cons -

1. NO TWAIN DRIVER. I knew this going in but did not appreciate how much this would cripple the device in day to day use. Let me explain. I had envisioned creating a virtual file cabinet in my computer using Windows Directory/Folder/File system then scanning my paper documents into this system as pdf files. The problem is that the native Fujitsu software does not let you append an existing pdf file!!!

As an example take a file for utility bills. D:/Home Expenses/Utilities/Gas_Electric. pdf. You can easily scan in all prior bills(limited by 50 sheet ADF)and a pdf with one page for each bill will be created. But if you had more than 50 prior bills or when next months bill comes then the next scan you perform to include these new documents will create a new pdf and does not allow the option of appending this current scan to the existing pdf. As you can see one could easily end up with 1000s of individual pdf documents in your filing system. The work around is to launch Adobe Acrobat (not reader) and use it to open the old composite pdf and use Acrobat to append the newly created pdf to the prior file. This work around takes longer than scanning in a 30 page document. Twain based scanners easily work with existing windows file structure and allow you to append an existing pdf without invoking Acrobat. .

Features:

• One button searchable PDF creation
• Intelligent paper feed detection
• Blazing 20ppm color scanning
• 50-page Automatic Document Feeder (ADF)
• Comes with Adobe Acrobat X Standard