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Vox Pop: Workflow for the Fujitsu ScanSnap?
Merlin Mann | Oct 23 2007
In comments about yesterday's "Making friends with paper" post, I was reminded by 43f member Adam Hooks...
Adam remembers correctly that I purchased and preliminarily fiddled with the Fujitsu ScanSnap S500M for OS X (Info, Amazon). It's a small-footprint, high-speed document scanner that a lot of people have been talking about lately. I'd read so many reviews and blog posts about how easy it is to use that I was intoxicated by the dream of a life -- if not without paper storage -- where I could at least try to minimize my unnecessary paper clutter and start making document archiving easier and more searchable. Given the not inconsiderable cost of the unit, I'm embarrassed to say that I got busy with other stuff and haven't yet returned to using the ScanSnap in any automated way. Doesn't mean I'm not interested or haven't gotten started... ScanSnap S500M My initial experiences, while tentative in terms of time commitment and true workflow integration, have been very positive so far. It's easy and fast to set up the S500M and then start scanning one- or two-sided documents. The beauty part is that the included "ScanSnap Manager" app not only stores your document preferences, but directs the USB input from the ScanSnap right into the destination app of your choosing (which can, of course, be an OCR app -- that's where it gets powerful). Initial experiments scanning directly to image-only PDFs were very positive, while scanning into "Yep" and "DevonThink Pro Office" (which has on-board OCR) seems to point even closer to the direction I eventually hope to go. I know at least a few of you are ScanSnap studs who have come up with workflows that are really happening for you (hint: looking at you for a blog post here, Mr. Norbauer). In the absence of a more detailed report from me, I'm hoping a few of you can chime in here. The Question to YouHow are you integrating the ScanSnap (or another OS X-friendly document scanner) into your workflow? What are you using for OCR? Having particular success with ReadIris, Acrobat, DevonThink, or Yep? Any sexy Automator workflows to share? 22 Comments
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 I'm very lazy…Submitted by Vincent van Wylick on October 25, 2007 - 6:24am.
…and just use the tools I have at hand. Recently, when I wanted to add some paper bills to my digital library, I just used my digital camera (a small Ixus), imported to iPhoto, and tagged bills. I do the same with business-cards and drawings. It's not perfect, the lighting could be better, but I can play with iPhoto's edit-function, remove shadows, increase contrast & sharpness, and I'm set. I know I keep repeating myself in my comments here, but I'm a firm believer in eliminating barriers between what I want to do and what I can do. Buying an expensive scanner, which would be collecting dust 99% of the time is less functional for me, than a camera that I can carry around and take pictures of people, and now paper, with. The same applies to using iPhoto vs. some application that I would hardly ever open. » POSTED IN:
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