Paperless Archives - Everybody Staze...

Few months back, I got a chance to borrow a ScanSnap S1500M from work, as well as an S1100 from a coworker. I did some basic scanning at home, and found that I really enjoyed being able to quickly scan receipts and other documents for easy archiving digitally. After a bit of pre-purchase buyers remorse, I bit the bullet and purchased a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 off Amazon, and since then, I haven’t looked back.

The difference between the S1300 and S1500 is rather dramatic when it comes to pages per minute (or maybe it should be inches per minute), as well as size. The S1500 SEEMS about 2-3x as fast when scanning ((According to Fujitsu’s site, the S1500 does 20PPM, where the S1300 is 8PPM)), and it seems to show that speed in physical size (it’s about 2-3x as big as the S1300). The S1500 also uses CCFL lights for illuminating the document being scanned, which means it uses much more power than the S1300 which uses a series of LEDs (the S1300 can, in fact, be powered over USB), in case I wanted to travel somewhere and help someone else digitize their documents, or if I ever manage to get back into genealogy, may be nice to travel and scan paper records.

While I haven’t got as nearly paperless as I’d like (nor have I had a chance to digitize everything in the file cabinet), I have been using it routinely as new documents make their way into my home that I feel like I should keep. The scanner software isn’t great, but it does allow easy scanning with the button on the scanner, and saves directly to my dropbox account “inbox” where I can go and rename the file and digitally file it away.

The process works extremely well, and the scanner scans pretty darn fast when you consider having to manually scan a document one side at a time (oh yeah, hopefully it was obvious the Scansnap scans double-sided).

All and all, a great purchase. They can be had on Amazon for a decent price, and if you sign up for an Amazon Visa card at the same time (like I did), you get $50 off! =)

[xrr rating=4.75/5]

UPDATE: Fujitsu, today (6/22/2012), announced the S1300i which is largely the same device, only 50% faster (12PPM vs. 8PPM). All the other “bells and whistles” about scanning to Dropbox, or Google Docs/Drive, are things updated in software, which is free to any Scansnap owner.

I recently purchased a Fujitsu Scansnap S1300 (review coming in the next few weeks) after borrowing both a S1500M from work, and an S300 from a coworker. I hate having to deal with paper ((Heck, I hate people printing at work (it’s an ongoing debate in the building… it seems like I’m sometimes the only one saying we need to curtail printing) )). My hope, with this in hand and some knowledge gained from here, I can turn years of files in my filing cabinet, into years of digital documents in Dropbox that can be searched, easily found, and worst case, printed (if absolutely necessary). I’ve been shredding personal documents for years, so the thought of being able to scan something, then quickly shred it, just makes me all kinds of happy. My goal, then, is the “myth” of paperlessness ((Also, this is the first post in what will probably become an ongoing topic on my site (such that I’ve created a new category for it).)). (which I don’t consider as much a myth as some). While paperlessness may be a lofty goal, my hope is to become closer and closer as time goes on (now that most banks, utilities, etc offer paperless billing, much to the USPS’s dismay).

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