Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 Instant PDF Sheet-Fed Scanner for PC
by Fujitsu Imaging
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 Instant PDF Sheet-Fed Scanner for PC
Customer Review: Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 is a remarkable office tool
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased the Fujitsu SnapScan S1500 during Christmas 2009. Over two months, I have scanned over 14,000 pages without problems. The scanner is truly a remarkable productivity tool that I will continue to use to convert my technical library into a searchable PDF library. All in all, the software does perform as the descriptions indicate. The scanner is extremely fast and performs in a very forgiving manner.
Although I am using the scanner with a Mac, I purchased the Windows version to get the Adobe Acrobat Pro 9. I run Vista using fusion, so I am able to utilize the Mac platform for most of my business applications and occasionally use Windows, if I really need to. The Mac has had absolutely no problems with the scanner. perhaps over the next several months, I will be able to reclaim 50 yards of bookshelves in my office.
The business card scanner software performs as advertised but it is not good enough to populate the Mac "address book" with the requisite information. The resulting data does not have the granularity that the address book looks for. I'm still trying to find software that will allow business card scanning with direct input into the address book. However, having said that I believe the software should work just fine with Microsoft outlook.
Note that the software is meant to only scan and "create" a searchable PDF file. The user would need software, such as Preview or Acrobat, to work with the file. There are numerous PDF software packages that can do all kinds of miraculous modifications to the file. If I have time, I like to cut out the articles such that the advertisements are removed and save the articles as a new PDF file. This helps with searching and file size. However, it does take more time.
A few points about using the scanner may help new users to avoid a few very minor issues. I like to read magazines and scan the articles that strike me. Most magazines have a gum backing (to hold the pages) which will leave a slight deposit on the scanner's clear plastic scanning area. This is not detrimental to the scanner But after scanning numerous pages, the clear plastic windows should be cleaned. A soft cloth gently applied to the window will clear the gummy substance. Don't be too aggressive as the gummy material will come off and you do not want to smear or scratch the scanning area.
Currently, I try to cut the backing off with a knife so that the gummy stuff does impact the scanner. Also, If you want to scan a book, use a table saw to cut off the binding or find a printer that has a "power knife" to slice off the backing.
The scanner is extremely forgiving if you forget a staple. Before scanning an old group of papers, be sure to fan the stack to ensure that the pages are not stuck to each other and that staples are not included in the batch. If a staple is missed, you'll definitely recognize the noise as the feeder attempts to pull the stuck pages through. Quickly release the scanners lock mechanism which will open up the "clamshell" scanner design. This is a single button (push button lever) located on the right side of the swing-out portion of the scanner. Opening the mechanism will automatically shut the scan down, relieve the stuck staple (pages) and protects the scanner. The software will ask if you want to continue scanning but usually you need to straighten up the papers, remove any staples or stuck areas and re-start the scan from the beginning. I use an old credit card to "rake" the crumpled paper back into a semi-flat condition. The scanner is very forgiving for less than perfectly flat paper.
Sometimes the papers (reports) are bound using a spiral binding. after removing the spiral binding, simply load up the paper and press the scan button. Sometimes the holes may tend to catch on the (scanned) page as it exits the scanner which causes the overall scanned stack to start to spill off the tray. This is not a big deal. Simply remove paper as it begins to misbehave or watch and guide the sheets as they feed through. I usually sit with the scanner as it works since most scams are only a few pages. Often, the pages behave and over 50 can be scanned in one run.
Very glossy magazine pages may have to be fed through more carefully. A very large stack of glossy pages (20 - 50) may not feed through very well. Limit the number of pages to five or so. Five pages probably covers most articles.
PDF scanning software works quite well. It is very valuable to ensure that the PDF file is searchable. however creating searchable PDF files does take a bit more time. Once you start going to an electronic filing system, you no longer know which notebook or file folder the paper is in. Being able to search the text in the scan is the only way to find your electronic knowledge, regardless of how clever your filing convention may be.
Customer Review: Must Have Scanner for the Paperless Office
Summary: 5 Stars
On the advice of a work colleague, I bought this scanner to start converting to a "paperless" office. I've only had it two weeks, but I'm already impressed with its ease-of-use, features, and speed. The scans look good, although all I need is a reasonable facsimile, not perfect copy. I can already tell that the hardware and software are designed to handle fairly large sets of documents in batch, which is another plus.
This is a feed scanner, not a flatbed scanner. You can't scan a page out of a book with it, and I doubt you'd want to use it to scan slides or photos. On the other hand, you can put at least 10 documents into it and scan *both* sides of each document in one batch, a trick that most home office flatbeds can't do.
Also, it does get dirty inside. Any piece of computer equipment that deals with the physical world will accumulate dust and toner that will impede its effectiveness. I recommend that you purchase the F1 Cleaner (available through Amazon) at the same time, although a microfiber cloth does well by itself.
The software is also quite good. You can create multiple profiles, each one based on a standard operation. For example, you can set up a profile to scan store receipts into a PDF file. The profile can set the destination folder to be the same every time, apply the same scanning parameters, and even set up a standard file name! If you want to, you can mark the store's name on the receipt with a highlighter, and the software will automatically "recognize" the name and tag the PDF with it. At the same time, the software can run OCR on the entire scanned image and put the results into the PDF as "meta-data", so that you can index all your receipts by keyword and then *search* them. This might be a bit much for the ordinary user, but I confess that as a software developer I was mightily impressed.
Note that some of the PDF features will require the full version of Acrobat, not just the reader.
This scanner is not TWAIN-compliant, so you have to choose between the PC version and the Mac version. Lack of TWAIN compliance also means that the scanner won't automatically work with all the TWAIN-enabled graphics software out there. This is unfortunate, and I don't know why Fujitsu chose to make the product this way, but I accept it. Plenty of people like this product, so clearly the decision wasn't completely horrible.
Some people have complained that the unit isn't compatible with earlier versions of Windows. I happen to know that this is roughly 90% the fault of Microsoft. Their approach to making Windows more resistant to viruses was to *completely* change the way one writes driver software for devices. This means that hardware vendors had to write one set of drivers for XP, and a *completely different and more complicated set of drivers for Vista/Win7*. What's worse, Microsoft officially stopped support for XP, which means that the hardware vendors couldn't depend on support for any problems *they* ran into with XP drivers. It's no wonder, then, that vendors decided to obsolete some devices rather than write Vista/Win7 drivers, and conversely not support XP on newer devices. Be thankful that Fujitsu kept their costs (and prices) down by making a hard choice, rather than pulling a Microsoft and screwing us because they don't know how to write secure software!
Keep in mind that I've only had this unit two weeks. The more moving parts a device has, the more likely it is to go south over time. If something goes wrong with the unit, I'll update my review. Also note that I haven't had to deal with Fujitsu tech support yet. However, I don't trust *anybody's* tech support, nor do I expect 100% perfect quality from any company. I do try to get product advice from people I know, and I never buy again from a vendor whose products fail on me.
*Follow-up*: I've now had the scanner for 2 months. In that time I've used it at least twice a day, sometimes more, and I've scanned 35 sheets at a time. *DON'T TAKE IT AWAY FROM ME!* This is one of the best pieces of computer equipment I've ever purchased. Not only has the hardware worked like a charm, but the software is amazing as well. I'm well on the way to putting every piece of paper I have into my computer. If you think that's risky, well, I plan to store the important stuff, but I'll put it into sealed boxes in the garage instead of taking up space with it in my office. At the same time, I'll have an index to *every word in every document*, courtesy of PDF and Adobe.
*More Follow-up*: I've now had the scanner for 5 months. I've lost track of the number of sheets I've scanned, but I've now put nearly my entire set of papers online with it. It's ultra-reliable and certainly a "snap" to use. I absolutely recommend it.
Customer Review: Good hardware but no twain driver is a significant limitation
Summary: 3 Stars
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.
2. Paper catch tray very fragile and ADF paper support does not stay up (also reported by other reviewers).
3. Double feed sensor: stops scan and reports. This is good. However you cannot retrieve the double fed sheet and place it back in proper order because the next sheet is already in the scanner and cannot be backed out. You have to either cancel the scan and start over or put the unread sheet back in out of order and then use Acrobat to rearrange the pages in the resultant pdf document. If you choose to cancel the scan the document that is halfway into the scanner will not be ejected and you need to perform an new scan to retrieve that sheet.
4. A scanning run will only handle one size document at a time. In my experience if you have a mix of paper sizes you will need to do a scanning run for each paper size. Each run will generate a separate pdf file with you will then need to deal with.
5. I paid extra for the scanner bundle with Rack2File software thinking it would help me create the filing system I envisioned. After loading and spending several hours with this software I don't understand how it works or what it is supposed to do. I consider the extra $30 dollars I spent for the "bundled" scanner money poorly spent.
6. Other minor annoyances are:
While the scanner and snapscan software will run on older platforms the bundled software Rack2file and Acrobat require XPpro SP3 or newer. This is not clear from specs.
ADF will hold 40-50 sheets but output tray will start to jam after 20-25 sheets.
Documents printed on less than 20# paper and with printing on both sides the back side printing will show up on the front side scan. Many commercial invoices are printed both sides on thin paper.
Cannot set several default scanning profiles. You need to reset the scanner parameters each time you want a different profile.
Bottom line:
This would be a 5 star low end document scanner if it only offered a twain driver. As it is I can recommend it only to prospective buyers who understand the full implications of this limitation. I thought of returning this scanner and getting one of the twain based models like the Epson GT S50 but at this point I have learned enough of Acrobat to quickly append my pdfs retrospectively.
I strongly recommend avoiding the "bundled" product since I don't see what added value the Rack2File software brings.
I considered giving the scanner a one star review just to get people's attention but the hardware is so good 3 stars seems about right.
Customer Review: An exceptionally reliable and versatile scanner
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been using ScanSnaps since they first appeared on the horizon. Prior to that, I'd been on a serious quest to become totally paperless. I worked in a law firm and convinced them to get a scanner and I learned how to use it. The machine was large, complicated and expensive. If it hadn't been so expensive I would have bought one for myself to use at home, but I just couldn't justify it. When the ScanSnap was announced I realized that finally there was a scanner that could scan batches of documents at an affordable price. I assumed that there had to be a catch, and that would mean the scanner wasn't quite top-notch.
I bought one anyway. I realized instantly that this was the holy grail of scanners. And, as I said, I've been using them ever since. Every one of these scanners has been a model of reliability. I've recommended these scanners to hundreds of people and every single person I've recommended it to has wound up falling in love with it. Like anything in the world of technology, it is best if you take the time to explore the settings and figure out how to make it work best for you. As a home scanner there is simply no other option, not in my view. The all-in-one machines are fine if you only want to scan a few things here and there. If you are going to scan stacks of documents then you need a real scanner.
How good is this scanner?
Well, like I said, I'm a lawyer and I've recommended this scanner to other lawyers and helped them set it up. Many other tech-savvy lawyers I know have discovered this scanner on their own. Lawyers as you may know, are huge devourers of paper. A couple of lawyers I know work in small firms where this is the only scanner. It can totally handle the workflow of paper that a small firm of lawyers receives. But, most of these firms quickly decide to get a scanner for each lawyer. And why not? It's not that expensive, especially when you consider that it comes pre-loaded with Adobe Acrobat (which is normally a $200+ value). If you want to be paperless then you want to scan to PDF, and having Acrobat allows you to manipulate your PDFs (e.g. add signatures, insert pages, rotate pages, make sticky notes etc.).
I've used both the Mac version of this scanner and the Windows version and they are completely equivalent. They both work wonderfully. The Windows version of this scanner comes with wonderful software called ScanSnap Organizer, which makes it really easy to batch scan a bunch of different papers (e.g. bank statements, utility bills, receipts etc) and then later on put them into folders or whatever you want to do to organize things. The Mac version doesn't come with this software, but there is a great program called 'Yep' (just google 'yep mac software' and you'll find it) that costs about $34 and is even better (in my opinion) than the Organizer software that comes with the Windows version of the ScanSnap.
It's rare in the world of technology that one product winds up dominating because it simply stands heads-and-shoulders above everything else that purports to compete with it. The Fujitsu ScanSnap is one such product. I advise a lot of lawyers about becoming paperless, and whenever I hear that someone has tried and failed to make the switch away from paper, I often find that the root problem is with their scanner. It's either too powerful (and therefore too complicated), or it's not powerful enough (e.g. the all-in-one device, and this is even true of the $10,000 high end multi-function devices). The ScanSnap is like the porridge in the Goldilocks fable: it's just right.
Install the software, then plug it in and hook it to the computer. Configure it and then load a stack of paper. Try putting a letter in upside down and see what happens (it will auto rotate it to the proper orientation). It will straighten pages that you load crooked, and it will scan the front and back of pages at the same time. But it will toss out the back pages if they're blank. It can scan in color or black & white. You can run OCR (optical character recognition) so that the document will be text-searchable (I don't do this because it takes a little extra time and generally isn't worth it, but you can do it easily if you want). If you get this and want more room on your desk then get rid of your fax machine and get a low-cost web based fax service like [...]which lets you send and receive faxes by email. You've got the Scanner and I presume you have an email account.
What are you waiting for? The paperless revolution awaits you, and all you need to make the first step is this Scanner.
Customer Review: Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 Review Comments
Summary: 5 Stars
I am overall very pleased with the scanner. It was purchased 22 March 2010 and arrived a few days later.
I was a bit worried since the $420 price is a substantial investment, but so far it has been well worth the money.
About 5000 sheets have been scanned in simplex and duplex modes. Simplex - one page, Duplex - both sides of a sheet of paper are scanned with one pass through, resulting in two pages saved per sheet. The automatic paper feed hopper max sheet width is 8 and 5/8 inches so if wider sheets are to be copied they would need to be split into narrow segments fed separately or reduced on a conventional paper copier and the reduced page scanned. Not sure how long a page (greater than 11 inches) can be scanned, I haven't tried.
I am satisfied with scanner speed.
I was a bit worried initially about the ability of the scanner, any scanner for that matter, to deal with paper of various thicknesses and texture, defects on the border, tears, tendency for the report pages to be less than flat (take on a wave shape horizontally for example). The scanner was able to handle such physical anomalies well. A staple or two left on a page (though not connecting multiple pages) passed through ok. Scotch tape didn't bother it. If a page had taped or glued on paper, such as for a type over (old documents) the scanner would occasionally see that as a multi-page feed and stop with a message. Often it was just necessary to direct the scanner to proceed on, while other less frequent times it had to be handled as a jam. Some few types of paper (likely having to do with surface properties), had a tendency to cause more than one sheet to pass through leading to a scanner stop and jam indication. First remedy is to remove the report, insert the first page holding back on the rest, and after the first page starts let go of or insert the rest before the first page finishes passing through. This quite frequently works. There were some types of very old (60's - 80's) paper that had to be fed by hand. Fortunately I haven't much of that. I was surprised that very thin paper went through so well. The automatic feed hopper holds around 50 or so pages. Really thick (3 inch for example) documents can be scanned by placing additional sheets, maybe 20 or so at a time, in the hopper as it empties but before the last prior sheet passes through. If that (the last page gets through before additional paper is placed in the hopper) happens the provided software can be used to merge several files into one to reconstruct the document. So far the scanner has caught all two or more sheet concurrent passage so I haven't had to worry about pages appearing to have been scanned when they were not. The software is a bit awkward to use for some tasks, though I haven't bothered to read up on how to use the ScanSnap software nor the Adobe Acrobat software. Sometimes when thin paper is scanned in duplex mode the blank back side is saved because the written side is seen through the paper. This can be remedied by scanning in simplex mode if all the pages are blank on the back side. The process for switching from simplex to duplex mode, so far as I know, is a bit cumbersome. One has to bring up the ScanSnap Organizer menu, click "no" that you don't want to change the PDF automatic conversion settings, click on the top left folder icon, click on "scan button settings", and then choose simplex or duplex. The Adobe Acrobat software provided with the scanner can be used to delete or insert a scanned page or sequence of pages. The software that makes the scanned report searchable works well. The process orients most pages that read up and down so they can be read horizontally. I found this software usable though I currently think some functions are also a bit awkward to use. The software can be used to rotate pages manually and has many other functions that I haven't used. Sometimes I have trouble getting a whole file of scanned documents to be converted to searchable form one after the other without manual intervention. The Adobe software for some reason hangs. If that happens I copy the files to a ScanSnap folder and then initiate character recognition and so far that has worked just fine. The conversion process takes time so I save a set of scanned documents and have them converted while on a break. I have used the black and white mode at 300 dpi exclusively. It handles colored paper well. The text typed on yellow paper comes through clear as a bell, for example. Not sure about other colors.