Document scanners you'd recommend?

Urchina

Urchina

Full time employment: Posting here.
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Messages
923
Location
Central Coast, California
Happy Friday, everybody! After our recent move (and the ensuing filing chaos that erupted) it's become clear that our current flatbed scanner is much too slow for our financial organizational purposes. I'd like to put all of our financial records (currently in piles of paper) into digital format (preferably .pdf).

Does anyone have a document scanner they particularly love? In an ideal world it would be fairly slim in profile, be able to scan multiple pages on both sides in color as well as B&W, and have reasonably good resolution (600 dpi would be more than enough) for a modest sum (<$250).

We use PCs.

Thanks for any and all suggestions!
 
I love my Scansnap S1500M. Bought it about three years ago, and use it constantly.
 
Not sure what to recommend in your price point but the Fujitsu Scansnap is pretty much the standard sheet scanner I recommend for all my friends and small business clients.
 
I have been looking at the Fujitsu Scansnap 1300i, which is $250 at Amazon.

Amazon.com: Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i Instant PDF Sheet-Fed Mobile Document Scanner: Electronics

However, before I even get close to buying it I am doing a LOT of shredding to get rid of the trash in my file cabinet. The idea is that (hopefully) when I see how few files I really need to keep, I won't feel such a need for the scanner.

As much as it may appeal to my inner sense of organization and order, I decided that I do not need to keep ten year old utility bills and the like. Nobody has ever asked me for them. I am going to keep those from 2013-2014 and shred the rest. Everything is available online these days anyway.
 
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braumeister said:
I love my Scansnap S1500M. Bought it about three years ago, and use it constantly.
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+1

We've run over 200k pages through ours (replaced the rollers and pick assembly once). However, it's a little above the OP's budget and I think it's been replaced by the ix500 model. However, based on our experience with this scanner, I wouldn't hesitate to buy a different model of fujitsu
 
I've given up scanning records since all of our bank accounts and investment accounts now provide statements in .pdf. I just download the file and save it. Even our utility companies provide bills in .pdf anymore.

Unless you buy or sell a house, or have loan docs, paper documents associated with those transactions are scannable.

Personally, I see no big reason to do much scanning anymore so my scanner sits idle.
 
Been using cheap HP all in one lasers at our office for 10+ years. Most of the original ones are still working and they are cheap. Added benefit of printing and copying (and faxing, if needs be).

The older version of this one is currently approximately 18 inches from my right elbow:
HP LaserJet M127fw Mono All-in-One Printer | Staples®
 
I have a HPscanjet that I am quite happy with. it does photo scanning also, including old slides and negatives. and will do OCR stuff. and can be a copy machine. and it was cheap, I don't remember how much, but I would not have spent a lot on it.
 
aja8888 said:
Personally, I see no big reason to do much scanning anymore so my scanner sits idle.
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My bank lets me electronically deposit checks by scan. That's my major use.

Also, I've recently started getting rid of my paper files and scanning them before I shred. I scan into microsoft one note.
 
For my scanning I use a muti-function printer/scanner/copier by Samsung. I found the software that came with a bit cumbersome so instead use a freeware program for my scanning.

That Scansnap looks pretty cool.

I'd want something that really portable and doesn't need to hook up to a computer. I got a scanning wand before but returned that the very first day as I never got it to work right.
 
I use my smartphone camera & an app called camscanner. Combine it with dropbox and it works really well for me.
 
Use iPhone camera then upload to skydrive. Not needed very often though as all statements are paperless.
 
Got the Scansnap iX500 about a month ago and love it. It's amazing.
 
Thanks, everyone! I've used my dad's Scansnap (but didn't know what it was called when I posted the note -- he confirmed a couple of days ago) and loved it. At $400 it's not something we'll be getting any time soon, but..

I have a co-worker who has a paperless office (what makes it even better is -- he's a librarian!) and he uses an app on his iPhone + TrueCrypt for sensitive information + Dropbox. We don't have smartphones so that isn't going to happen yet.

I'll look into some of the other options. In the meantime, I'll be sloooooowly scanning with our HP all-in-one.
 
There are small portable USB-powered document scanners available for less than $100.

My attempts to photograph documents with a smart phone have not given me the clean high res sharp image I want for full page documents, especially since such docs often come folded and won't lay flat. Fine for checks to deposit I'm sure.
 
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When I went paper-free, I wanted a fast scanner with a large tray so that I could scan a pile of paper very quickly. I ended up getting the Xerox Documate 510 and it has served me well.
 
FIREd said:
When I went paper-free, I wanted a fast scanner with a large tray so that I could scan a pile of paper very quickly. I ended up getting the Xerox Documate 510 and it has served me well.
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Looked it up on Amazon. They started making those at least 10 years ago. Not bad for service life. I had a document feeder with HP scanner about 10 years ago. The document feeder lasted about 1 year.
 
Hermit said:
Looked it up on Amazon. They started making those at least 10 years ago. Not bad for service life. I had a document feeder with HP scanner about 10 years ago. The document feeder lasted about 1 year.
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Mine is 6 years old and I scanned the content of a whole file cabinet with it. It is still going strong.
 
soupcxan said:
Scansnap 1300i is good. $250 on amazon.
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Of course at that point you could also buy a flatbed scanner for photos depending on how much you want to scan (it would be a manual process), but you would have a machine to scan old photos up to 4800 dpi if you wanted to (Epson V.600). So the trade off is document feeder versus being able to scan photos.
 
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