Gadgets

There was a time when my organization of paper documents was supported by a rigid work flow. Times change, unfortunately. So does ones persistence to use a flatbed scanner to scan double-sided documents. It’s a matter of discipline, too. Miss out on one, then two packs of mail collected from the PO box and suddenly the already arduous task of scanning five documents becomes a mountain of work, with more than fifteen or so to complete. Leave it a bit longer…you get the picture.

For a while I stuck to the flatbed rather doggedly, scanning slowly, saving to PDF, then turning the page over and scanning again. Save. Open the first PDF and add in the second page. Save again. Next document. It’s a pain.

My method of saving and storing the documents consisted of a rather simple directory named Repository with folders for each year contained within it. Within each specific year’s folder, I created a folder with the name of the company the documents refer to. Each scan receives a number for the month or a more complete date in case of multiple documents per month. As an archive, it works really well, makes document retrieval easy and, best of all, allows me to throw all the paper I no longer need to keep into the recycle bin.

For a while, I used a large HP MFP device, dropped in a bunch of A4‘s and let it scan and email me the PDF‘s. Great from a speed perspective, but certainly no great help with double-sided documents: those had to be separated out, scanned on one side and then the other. Finally all the e-mailed PDF‘s had to be edited by hand for me to save the individual documents as I required them. Again, not ideal.

I scan all letters, invoices and relevant post I receive. Also certificates, medical bills and tax details. The situation became rather untenable: heaps of paper, unsorted cluttering my study. The arrival of the iMac prompted me once again to look at a solution I’d considered a while back but had never committed to: the Fujitsu ScanSnap. Being a convert to the Mac, I investigated the price of both the S300m and the S1500m. The ScanSnap‘s are not cheap – for my requirements, the S300m seemed perfect – I took the plunge and placed an order. The device arrived about two weeks ago and I immediately set it up and tried it out.

Before I continue, I’ll say this: the ScanSnap S300m is probably the most intuitive and trouble-free device I have ever connected to a computer. That’s taking into consideration what it does, namely scan paper of varying sizes, down from letter size to business cards. Load the included software before attaching the small scanner to a free USB port. The included Cardiris software is installed first, then the scanner driver. Plug the S300m in and get ready to scan.

The S300m is a portable, duplex scanner. Powered either by the supplied AC adapter or an additional USB cable, the scanner measures 28cm wide, 8cm high and only 9cm deep. At 1.4kg it’s not something you’d stick in your gadget bag for everyday toting around. Certainly not without the protective carrying case, which is an optional extra and not supplied. Very important: the S300m is specific to the Mac and will not work with Windows. That’s not so much a restriction of the scanner itself, rather the fact that Fujitsu supplies only Mac software – their download site provides updates only and I haven’t yet found a way of downloading a functional Windows driver. That is the only negative, besides the price. Once connected, an icon appears in the dock indicating that the scanner is offline. Open the hood, pull up the paper guides and the SnapScan icon indicates that the scanner is ready for work.

Paper is inserted top down, first page to the back. A simple press of the only button on the S300m starts the scanning process. Part of the magic of how well the Fujitsu ScanSnap works is with the actual device itself. I went through a mountain of A4 pages measuring at least 10cm high. Documents are scanned individually, but the speed of the device is phenomenal. 16 pages per minute in duplex mode.

The user guide indicates that documents should be ten pages or less. In duplex mode, I scanned 75 pages without any trouble at all – all I had to ensure was that the paper was properly fanned and stepped to assist the narrow sheet feeder. In all the paper I scanned, I had three misfeeds, all due to badly scrunched pages. No fault of the scanner at all, which is also perfectly capable of receving skewed input and automatically realigning it without user intervention.

Scanned documents are automatically transferred to the ScanSnap desktop software and prepared in PDF format. From within the dialog, the user has the opportunity to review the scan, enter a file name and save.

Then, it’s on to the next document.

For now, I’m simply saving the scans to the root of the Repository directory, renaming them manually and moving them to the relevant directory. It’s no big job and can be done at any time. The most important task is completed with absolute ease and in record time. That’s the scanning part. I’m busy investigating how I can automate the moving of files automatically by using Hazel, but I’m very happy with the ScanSnap and heartily recommend it to anyone facing the paper mountain dilemma!