For the to buy list

[julesjones]

Yesterday I was thinking that it's time to buy a good hopper-fed scanner, with the aim of digitising a bunch of stuff so that I can dispose of the hard copies. autopope was singing the praises of one a while back, but I couldn't remember what model. Since he's just mentioned it again, I wish to make a note where I can find it. The Fujitsu ScanSnap is not cheap, but may well be worth it and is at least a deductible business expense. (No, that does not make it free. It just means I can knock some percentage of its price of my tax bill.)

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

One note of caution: Fujitsu sell two versions -- one for Mac, one for Windows. If you buy the one, you get the software for the specified OS; if you later try to plug it into the other, Fujitsu won't help you or provide drivers. (The hardware appears to be identical, but the licensing encumbrances are something else ...)

This is only a problem in multi-operating-system offices.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I have a Mac Scan-Snap that I got several years ago. Not the currently available model but an earlier model. My experience is that it works very nicely on originals that are in good condition, but if your originals have any tendency to stick together, you'll end up feeding them in one sheet at a time and swearing a lot. (And since most of what I'm scanning is photocopies of academic articles that have been stapled and dog-eared, there's a lot of swearing.) Mind you, it's still faster and more efficient than putting them on the flat-bed a page at a time, but it wasn't the miracle toy that I'd hoped it would be. If you have a chance to try one out before buying, test it on both your "average condition" job and your worst-case job.