I have lots of documents that I want scanned and converted to pdf. So what I need is a scanner with a paper feeder.
I have an Epson all-in-one machine (I don’t remember the exact model) but the paper feeder sucks. Sometimes it feeds multiple sheets at once and some other times it can’t feed the sheet at all.
I don’t need an all-in-one machine, just the scanner. And I don’t care if it is slow as long as I can put a stack of sheets and leave it working without having to keep an eye on it.
Get a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 (or S1500M if you use Macintosh).
It’s expensive (~$500) but anything else will be a disappointment.
Mine (older model, S510M) came with Acrobat Pro 8 and FineReader OCR software. It scans both sides of the sheet at once, direct to PDF, at about 15 pages per minute. You won’t believe it until you see one in action.
Check Youtube for a video of one of these things running.
I even chop the spines off books and scan them in, from time to time.
I have scanned in thousands of documents over the past two years and it is still running strong. Almost all of my non-critical documents are scanned, ocr’d, and indexed—for example, I can search for “volkswagen tires” on my Mac and find a receipt from three years ago when I bought new tires for the car.
I can only find the Scansnap S510 (is the S1500 discontinued?) in local stores. The cheapest store sells for 550 euros.
It is rather expensive, but I have a metric shitload of important documents (contracts, legal documents, catalogues) and with my current scanner I need more time than the age of the universe to scan them all.
With this baby I would be able to digitize them in a couple of hours! I’m going to buy it. Thanks!
Make absolutely sure you get the PC or Mac model, depending on your OS. They are not interchangeable. Unrelated cavaet: These scan direct to PDF; they do not to TWAIN. Excellent for scanning documents, but not designed for scanning photographs into Photoshop.
The S510 (that’s the PC model) will please you to no end. Check the bundled software: they should have given you some heavy hitters, close to worth the hardware price.
(and the S1500 is the newer model, but the S510 is still quite studly).