Fujitsu S500M ScanSnap Scanner — A dream machine dedicated to document scanning
Reviewed by Harry {doc} Babad
Fujitsu Computer Products of America Website: www.vendorwebsiteURL.com or http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/computing/peripherals/scanners/workgroup/s500m.html List: $495, Street $379 (NexTag) USD; $ 550 CND; £315 GBP; or € 419 Euro Requirements: Power PC G4 Processor 800 MHz or higher, Recommended: Power PC G5 Processor 1.6 GHz or Higher. Mac OS X 10.4 or later; Universal binary. The specifications indicate Mac OS X 10.2.8, and later (PowerPC), Mac OS X 10.4 recommended. RAM 512 MB Recommended, Disk Space needs: 20 MB for ScanSnap Monitor application and 450 MB for Adobe Standard. A PC version of the scanner is also available. Fujitsu ScanSnap™ S500Color Scanner http://www.fujitsu.com/us/news/pr/fcpa_20050328-03.html |
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Warranty — The ScanSnap S500M scanner is covered by a one-year Limited Warranty. Strengths: Scan to PDF with the touch of a button and digitize both sides of a document in a single pass, in color, and at an impressive speed of up to 18 pages per minute (36 images per minute in duplex). The canner comes with Acrobat 7 Standard and Readiris Pro 11.5 and Cardiris 3, the later two tuned to the scanners function. Weaknesses: The S500M’s photo scans aren’t in the same league as my HP ScanJet 8250 flatbed scanner’s at its normal setting of 150 dpi, but works wonderfully for its designated task capturing the contents documents so you can dispose of the paper copy. The software was tested on a 1 GHz dual processor PowerPC G4 Macintosh with 2 GB DDR SDRAM running under OS X 10.4.9. Copyright Notice: Product and company names and logos in this review may be registered trademarks of their respective companies. |
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Introduction
In the accompanying article in this issue, I rambled about how one could initially organize and ultimately make electronic, a large collections of references. In my column entitled Too Many References — Too Little Space — No way to Search for Them, I focused on technical papers and science articles. What I’d discussed, the organization of paperwork, and the devolution of the subject oriented filing cabinet, would work from everything from product descriptions to business letters and contracts, from legal briefs to articles about plants and gardening.
There are two parts to the challenge of collecting and the reaccessing paperwork or electronic documents. The first is organizing the documents, be they paper or electronic, in such a way you can find stuff again, perhaps in five minutes or less in 1000 documents. The other is to convert your paper collection to electronic form to free up closet, file draw or bookshelf space. This article about the Fujitsu ScanSnap focuses on the later.
What one needs to go all-electronic are two tools and one scarce asset — First and most importantly, a flexible and reliably fast scanner. Second, the software accompanying the scanner must be easy to use and bug free. The scanner vendor must also provide you with software that enables trouble free conversion of the scanned page to the format(s) you need to be able to use them. I prefer PDF files, either in graphic or editable format to text or word processor based formats. In addition, for those who require editable documents, the vendor must supply a reliable and accurate OCR program. Such software is available as part of Acrobat and as separate application in Readiris.
Product Specifications
Output resolution: Up to 600 dpi
Measuring 6.2 by 11.2 by 9.2 inches (HWD) including the output tray, 6.2 inches with the tray retracted.
Scan Speeds:
Normal Mode (Color 150 dpi, B&W 300 dpi) — 18 pages per minute / 36 images per minute (duplex mode.) Better Mode (Color 200 dpi, B&W 400dpi) — Duplex 12 pages per minute/24 images per minute. Best Mode (Color 300 dpi, B&W 600dpi) — Duplex 6
pages per minute/12 images per minute. |
Note: Normal mode is the fast one, and it's ideal for black and white text documents. Better mode is slightly slower but with a visible increase in output quality. In best mode, throughout drops to 6 pages (12 sides) per minute, the setting I used to copy photographs and documents containing color images. |
Paper Size: A4 to custom sizes
Capacity of ADF: Up to 50 sheets
Interfaces: USB 2.0
Time —However, above all else, you must own one rare asset — time. (Motivation too, but that’s even scarcer then time.) Unless you are wealthy enough to have staff perform the scanning and organizing of you documents, you need to be prepared to take the time to do it. No not all at once — it will never happened; but 2-3 hours on Sunday afternoon or Wednesday evening, would work. You also need to be prepared to continue doing so for as long as you gather up documents, on paper. With the right tools, turning you paper documents into paperless files can be accomplished in a surprisingly short time. Indexing and filing all your documents requires time and system. For a description of my system and how I got there, read Too Many References — Too Little Space — No way to Search for Them in this issue. |
Let’s look Deeper — First and foremost a scanner capable of handling multiple page documents easily and with relative speed. Such a tool should also be capable of dealing with feeding stacks of paper in various conditions. These range from documents that are well read in which the pages don’t stick together but may not lie flat. At the other extreme there’s a new document you not gotten around the reading with its pages close packed.
Bindings and Other Variations — Scanning challenges include dealing with document that were edge punched and held together with plastic coils of various types or document that were made pretty after being stapled by having a tape binding added. Documents can also be held together with a heavy duty or a lightweight staple. All of these types of document bindings pose problems with the ability to feed single sheets. I’ll discuss dealing with bindings and how to avoid paper jams when using the Fujitsu scanner later in this review.
Getting Started
Basically, you install the software, plug in the power cord and USB cable, and let your Macintosh Windows recognize the scanner. The software consists of three items, on separate CDs. The Fujitsu scanner Setup CD is accompanied by a copy of Acrobat 7 Standard and the device optimized copies of Readiris 11.5 and Cardiris 3. Since I have Acrobat 8 Professional installed, I did not use the provided copy of Acrobat 7. Acrobat 8, once selected in the Fujitsu software’s settings worked just fine. I installed the I.R.I.S. software, after taking with the I.R.I.S technical support. The software, which is mostly identical to my Readiris Pro 11.03, has been optimized to make converting ScanSnap output to searchable PDF documents more automatic. I found that to be so.
Its user interface is somewhat different from that with my HP flatbed scanner. You define profiles from within the scan software, ScanSnap Manager, to specify the programs to scan to, and the scanning mode and characteristics including image resolution and naming. These settings remain the default, until you change them. When you are ready to scan, you pick a profile and then press the scan button on the front panel to start the scan. This is a bit different, but easy to get used to.
Using the Hardware
To use the ScanSnap S500M, just insert a stack of paper and press a button to initiate the scan process. The scanner will automatically create and store a PDF file and hand it over to Adobe Acrobat. If you chose to use the provided OCR functionality you can select Readiris as the application that processes your scanned document. Alternatively, use the full version of Acrobat, which is included within the ScanSnap S500M package, your scanned document can easily be converted to a fully searchable PDF file. The process for a 10 page double sided document, only took a minute or two longer to complete.
I jumped into using the product by grabbing several dozen documents (ca. 2000 pages) from my — I need to index these #$@&&# documents and file them — pile.
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I was careful to select documents that represented all of the conditions discussed with respect to “Bindings and Other Variations.” The table below describes my test findings. In all cases as recommended in the product’s 131-page Operators Guide, I followed the instructions on How to Load Documents.
Document Condition |
Special Extra Handling (Note 1) |
Scan Result |
Well read – handled pages |
None |
Trouble free scan |
Well read pages with a light weight staple (remove staple) |
None |
Trouble free scan |
Newly printed pages w-w/o staple |
None |
Trouble free scan |
Edge punched bound document |
None |
Trouble free scan |
Unread document with a heavy staple |
The dimples left after removing the staple made loosing the pages more difficult. The printer jammed one or twice until I got it right |
The residual dimples caused the stacker (scanned pages) to misbehave, zigzagging the pages as they caught on the dimple. They were however in the correct order. There was no easy fix to this problem. (Note 2) |
Unread document edge strip bound and heavily stapled |
Residual glue on the bound edge required trimming the edge with a paper cutter. I removed about 2 mm and then loosened the pages. |
Depending on the weight of the staples, I got a repeat of the dimple related problem. Otherwise trouble free. |
Upside down or Sideways Pages |
None |
The Fujitsu scanner’s software automatically rotates the pages appropriately. It even effectively accommodates mixed pages in landscape and portrait mode. |
Color Photographs |
Required setting higher resolution [scanned to JPEG] |
Trouble free scan |
Note 1: Prior to feeding the document to the scanner and before taking any special action I followed the vendor instructions about “loosening” the pages. Note 2: I did not need the original document after I scanned it so did not concern myself about straightening out the pages. |
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Scanning Options and Output Results
Acrobat 8 Pro — Scanning to Acrobat creates a PDF file that is only an image. To be able to extract text, you will then need to OCR the pages with ether ReadIris or from within Acrobat. Acrobat 7 Standard was provided with the scanner but my Acrobat 8 Professional worked just fine.
Scan to ReadIris
Pro 11.5 for Fujitsu (Provided with the
scanner) — The scanned pages go directly to the OCR software and the text
portions are automatically selected. You then only need to recognize the text
to what ever output you prefer, for me either RTF or PDF which can be edited,
works fine.
Scan to ReadIris Pro 11.0.3 (Which I own) — After the scan to Read Iris is complete, you must then analyze each page manually. After that step, you can recognize (OCR) the text and images, and save the result as a RTF or an editable PDF file.
Scan to Apples Preview– Your output is a graphic only PDF file that cannot be edited.
Scan to Photoshop Elements 4.0 – This works in a manner similar to importing a PFD file in the software.
Other Features
Auto Paper Size Detection — The S500M’s auto-size detection function automatically recognizes the size of every page that it scans for the following paper sizes (A4, B5, A5, B6, A6, Business card, Legal and Letter).
Auto de-skew — The S500M eases scanning tasks by automatically straightening all images and showing them in their proper orientation.
Auto Blank Page Detection — The S500M saves storage space and editing time by automatically deleting blank pages.
Owners Manual — Downloadable 131 page Operations Guide, a manual, that is more detailed than either the software’s help files or the Getting Started Manual.
Minor Discomforts
Need An Alternative Means to Initiate Scanning - Once you’ve established your preferences you can start scanning by either pushing the scan button on the deice or by selecting either duplex or simplex mode from the ScanSnap Manager that’s in your dock. Since my scanner is not on my desk, I need to get up to push the button. Therefore I wish I could just double click on the software’s dock icon to start a scan. It is important to note that if you set the preferences (settings) to duplex mode, back pages are skipped. When scanning 25-50 page documents, which were printed only on one side, the duplex setting did not seem to slow down the scanning process.
Note: To increase the speed of converting my paper collection to PDF I select that mode. When I need an accessible copy for editing or extracting test, I can do that later. Note: The scanned (in normal mode) Acrobat formatted image files are about 50% smaller in size than the OCR’d versions.
Pages Limit — Many of my documents are about a cm thick, the scanner requires I split these into two setups of about 50 pages each. Not a serious problem, but for collectors of fat documents, a minor inconvenience.
Scan To File Setting — I couldn’t figure out what this setting did until I read the Operators Manual. I expected it to scan to a temporary file and ask what format I wanted the file save to. Nope, it just scanned to a graphic PDF without showing the scanned file on the screen. The setting works fine if you’re not worried about checking the individually scanned documents.
Conclusion
ScanSnap S500M defines the Fujitsu way that an efficient document scanner for the office professional's personal every-day use should look like. Now for the first time I have, until I return the loaner to Fujitsu, a means for simply and accurately doing high quality scanning of typical documents I collect. As Ed Eubanks, Jr, noted in his recent ATPM review: “Though the price is well above most home/consumer scanners, the return on investment is immediate. ScanSnap is bundled with Adobe Acrobat Standard (though version 7.0 came with mine, not the latest version 8.0) and ReadIris Pro 11. With Acrobat selling for $150 (street price) and ReadIris Pro for $129, you could say the scanner itself only costs $100—though that would imply a value far below its worth. The real return on investment will come on the hours saved by what this scanner offers.” http://www.atpm.com/13.03/scansnap.shtml. Check out Ed’s article, its well worth the side-trip. (Note: I didn’t benefit by the identified savings since I already own both software products – doc.)
The Fujitsu ScanSnap scanning solution’s reasonable-price, small footprint, ease of use and exceptional functionality make it the ideal document management solution for small- and mid-sized offices or for document collecting packrats. The ScanSnap scanner’s “one-button” approach eliminates elaborate scanning applications and cumbersome driver interfaces. Its amazingly small footprint allows the scanner to sit comfortably beside your computer keyboard and monitor or on that file cabinet you’re going to empty out.
Recommendation
What can I tell you folks? If I had the cash, I would instantly purchase this excellent flexible scanner. As a document junkie who’s paper collections is outgrowing accessible storage space, it is the best solution I’ve found for reducing my paper collection. In addition, working with scanned materials makes it easier to enter document information into my references database. That reduces the effort to maintain access to my collection by doing real-time indexing.
I wonder what I could get for my ADF equipped HP ScanJet 8250? Oh well, perhaps the family can chip in for a X’mas present.
