Customer Reviews

Fujitsu ScanSnap S500 Clr 18PPM/36IPM Dupl Scanner

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I purchased this scanner to improve the operation of my CPA office (consulting/audit practice), and to get rid of a good part of (roughly 40 crates of) files I have accumulated over my career. Before making this purchase I reviewed the CPA Computer report Accountants Guide to Going Paperless, the AICPA IT section whitepapers, I attended a few paperless workshops, and I read Amazon reviews of earlier Fujitsu products and Visioneer products. My unit serial number was #5XX, so mine is one of the first of this model sold. This review is based on only one week of experience using the S500, but I think it is better to share this information now than to wait until I have more to report.

The S500 appears to be similar to the previous model the FI5110EOX2 which has been heavily, and positively, reviewed on Amazon and also in the references listed above. Differences between the S500 and the earlier 5110 are as follows -
* Integration with ABBY OCR, so the S500 can produce searchable PDF's and other formats!!! This was a major limitation with the 5110EOX2 which could only produce graphic PDFs. The ABBY OCR is not perfect, but hopefully gets enough keywords right to make the document findable.
* One touch scan to PDF, to Word, to Excel, to Power Point, to ScanSnap Organizer (which produces searchable PDFs), and to Cardminder (for business cards).
* Inclusion of Adobe Acrobat 7.0!
* 20% improved scan speed (up to 16 pages per minute, with a 50 page feed bin), and the ability to append consecutive batches to the same PDF file. In practice I think I will often be using highest resolution (Excellent, 1200dpi/600dpicolor) mode with max compression, which is significantly slower - about 25sec/page scan time and 10sec/page OCR time on my new Compaq presario laptop. The lower resolution modes (going down to Fastest, 300dpi/150dpicolor) might be sufficient for older print documents without marks or illustrations, that do not have much value to me, that I doubt I will ever look at again but can't just toss.
* Automatic document size detection so you can feed batches of mixed size documents. (plus all the document handling features from the 5110, including reasonably good automatic handling of mixed single sided and double sided documents)
* File compression which is claimed to reduce file sizes 20-50 percent.
* A significant cash manufacturers [censored] for purchases from authorized dealers is currently available for this product through the Fujitsu website.

Here are the limitations I have seen with this scanner so far (4000 scans of documents and business cards) -
* It sometimes feeds two sheets at once, most often the first two sheets in a batch, so I will have to keep my eye on the first sheets it feeds. If the documents have page numbers it will be easy to know how many documents I have fed and compare this with the scanner count. If the documents do not have page numbers I will need to count them by hand, or keep I very close eye on the scanner throughout the scan, or just live with a very occasional missed page due to the mechanism feeding two sheets at once.
* I assume staples will damage the mechanism, and so I will have to carefully inspect all documents for staples before scanning.
* The OCR is alright but not perfect. There are frequent OCR mistakes when scanning business cards, and several mistakes per page on spreadsheets (7's sometimes become 1's, 5's sometimes become S's, 0's sometimes become O's, missing decimal points, extra junk characters etc). White text on black background and black text on grey background have poor results. Fortunately the graphic image is retained in the searchable PDF, and is also retained in Cardminder, so that even when the OCR is not perfect I can still see what the original looked like.
* If a spreadsheet had relationships between the columns, I can recalculate the relationship and compare my recalculation with the scanned information, which seems to detect almost all errors in scans to Excel.
* Scan to Word often results in a slightly different format or positioning of text than the original document.
* The scanner does not support TWAIN (a uniform driver interface for scanners), instead it has a proprietary interface. Based on my research, the proprietary interface is better than TWAIN, so if the included software meets your needs then this is not a limitation. However if you absolutely must use some 3rd party software that requires TWAIN then you should not buy this scanner!
* The PDF files produced by the system are not fully compressed, even with maximum compression selected. Running PKZIP does not increase the compression significantly, however in Adobe 7.0 I click File | Reduce File Size | For Adobe 7.0 and subsequent, and files compress perhaps by up to 80% ! This additional Adobe compression claims to have no loss of visual quality and is fast for PDFs of a few megabytes, but quite slow for huge PDFs, and seems to produce much more additional compression on high resolution scans than on low resolution scans. Why can't Fujitsu/Abby use this Adobe 7.0 super compressed mode to begin with or add it to their batch process manager? I have not figured out how to get the system to reduce this annoying extra process step.
* After installing the scanner, Outlook caused my XP system to hang three times a day with a fatal "STOP ERROR" causing a blue screen and a reboot. I called tech support, and found it very easy to reach a live person who listened to me sympathetically and had some useful troubleshooting information, but did not have an immediate fix and took me down a few false paths. Microsoft crash analysis was worse than useless and incorrectly concluded that the problem was in my graphics driver which was not the case. In the end, through trial and error, I diagnosed the problem myself. It turned out that the Blue Soleil bluetooth USB wireless networking drivers installed in my system and plugged into Outlook were incompatible with something in the S500 package, perhaps with the S500 drivers or the Adobe 7.0 Outlook plugin. Uninstalling Blue Soleil caused the problem to go away completely.
* Every now and then (2%?) of scans, when I press the green scan button or when I click continue in the scansnap manager window, the image scanning and file saving window comes up on my screen, but the feed motor never starts turning. The system appears locked up, and the only way to reliably start scanning again seems to be to disconnect and reconnect the power plug on the back of the scanner.
* When scanning paper that is rough or perforated, sometimes the ejecting page will push the previously scanned page out of its neat stack in the output pile, and in the worst case spill several pages from the output pile onto the floor! I have learned to place the scanner at the rear of a deep desk, and to set a block at the front of the desk at the front end of output pile to push back against any paper that tries to fall out.
* I was able to use the software to convert some previously scanned graphic PDFs to searchable PDF's, however the Abby manual does claim that only files produced by ScanSnap are supported (though I suppose one could always print a hardcopy and then scan it again using ScanSnap).

Despite the problems listed above, this system is helping me better communicate with my clients, and in the long term I think it will significantly reduce the clutter in my office.

I was looking for a scanner that could digitize pages larger (in length) that standard letter size (8,5x11 inches). In my country (Chile) nobody now sells legal size scanners (or almost scanners at all - they have all moved to multifunctional devices). When shopping at Amazon for this specific figure, I found this very new product (even in the Fujitsu page it is quite new). I wondered if it would work for my needs.

In that sense, Scansnap S500 was and is an excellent buy. It worked flawlessly from the first scan. I was surprised with the speed of the scans! I couldn't measure the speed, but I believe from the jobs I did that the 18PPM speed is accurate.

The adobe acrobat standard version 7.0 is an excellent bundle, as well as the ScanSnap Organizer and the ABBYY Finereader OCR software.

I was very pleased with the simple way of scanning the documents with the software. Put the batch, press a green button and that's it. ScanSnap Organizer pops up and everything goes smoothly. Afterwards, I can edit the documents with Adobe Acrobat.

Why I didn't give it 5 stars: very simple - the driver from Fujitsu does not comply with the Windows logo testing. A warning pops up when plugging the USB cable and windows XP detects the hardware. Fujitsu should spend just the little effort that is needed to get the driver properly certified. This is not the time of the Apple III, Macintosh or Original IBM PC, where writing a driver was a major task. The same with the minimum effort that means developing a driver that is Twain/ISIS compliant. These two minor issues should be addressed by Fujitsu soon.

Both issues were clearly documented, so no surprises. At least the documentation is very clear about them.

In summary, I really recommend the product for its use. The price is very competitive and the software bundle is extremely attractive.

Wow! That is the first word that came to my mind when I scanned my first document with the Fujitsu S500 scanner. Wow! It scanned so quickly that I wasn't sure I did it correctly until I saw the .pdf file pop up in Adobe Acrobat only moments later. If you are needing a fast document scanner, you need look no further.

Everything about this scanner reflects quality. It arrives well-packaged with all necessary connecting cables, software (including Adobe Acrobat 7 standard edition), and documentation. The S500 is much smaller than I had envisioned from its picture, but this is a big benefit as it takes up very little space on the desktop. Despite its small size, the scanner feels solidly built. The power supply has a standard detachable AC cord so there is no brick to take up valuable outlet space. The printed documentation is outstanding. A full-sized printed manual is provided (in several languages) which is detailed and thorough. The S500 scanner is quite intuitive to use, but the manual leaves no question about how to use it properly.

The scanner opens somewhat like a flower. One simply lifts up the lid, which forms a backboard for your documents, and then fold down an inner lip to catch the scanned documents as they exit the scanner. A power button is present when you open up the scanner, but you really never need to use it -- the scanner automatically turns on when you open it up and shuts itself off when you fold everything back in place. The only other button is a large scan button, which makes scanning documents extremely simple. When closed back up the scanner's interior is completely covered, keeping it dust-free.

The S500 scanner is very versatile. You can scan full-color documents in a wide variety of sizes without any special configuration -- the scanner will automatically sense their margins and make the appropriate scan. I found this even worked with thin, thermal paper credit card receipts without any special handling. You can place a stack of documents in the scanner and configure it to scan them automatically and in sequence. Odd-sized documents (e.g. newspaper clippings, photographs, etc.) can be scanned using the included carrier sheet. The scanner can be configured to send scanned documents to a variety of programs including Adobe Acrobat; Microsoft Word, Excel, or Powerpoint; Cardminder (a business card organizer that can route scanned business cards directly into Microsoft Outlook); ABBYY Finereader (an OCR software); and SnapScan Organizer (a .pdf organizer). The software can also be configured to make searchable .pdf files. All of the software mentioned above, except for the Microsoft Office software, is included with the scanner. The S500 is small enough that it could be easily used as a portable scanner. In fact, a carry case is available for separate purchase from online vendors.

The thing that really sets the Fujitsu S500 scanner apart from other scanners is its blazing speed. The S500 warms up very rapidly (literally within seconds), scans a document on one or both sides automatically within seconds, and quickly generates a full-color .pdf file. I have never seen such a fast scanner. You really have to see it to believe it. By comparison, it would take me several minutes to scan even a single document on one side with my Hewlett Packard 6300c flatbed scanner. The difference in scanning speed is absolutely incredible. Despite its rapid scanning speed, document scan quality is quite good with the S500, and it is certainly good enough for accurate OCR with the included ABBYY Finereader software. Scanning resolution can be adjusted, although it is a little awkward to configure. Scanned images are inferior with the S500 even when configured to scan at the highest resolution/quality setting. My flatbed scanner clearly makes nicer image scans, although it takes much longer to produce them.

Fujitsu's customer service is somewhat lacking. My scanner arrived with a corrupt SnapScan setup disk. Calling Fujitsu customer service sent me on a merry chase from one phone menu to another. It took seemingly forever to ultimately connect with a human. Once I did, though, the friendly customer service representative directed me to Fujitsu's ftp site where I was able to download the needed software and burn my own replacement CD. I'm sure they would have happily mailed me a replacement if I had requested it. Where the service is lacking, aside from the maddening loops of phone menus, is the poor sales support. If you call customer service for pre-sales information, after going through endless phone menus, you will ultimately be told to leave a voicemail for a representative to call you back. The S500 owners manual recommends replacing the scanner carrier sheet after 500 scans and provides a part number for a 5-pack of carrier sheets (which turns out not to be a correct part number). But you cannot purchase replacement carrier sheets from Fujitsu! The Fujitsu customer service agent I spoke with had no idea where you could purchase replacement carrier sheets and referred me to a 3rd party vendor in New York who said they could order them but couldn't give me an accurate price. Eventually, I found online vendors where they can be purchased after doing a Google search (I have since found out you can purchase them through an Amazon vendor).

There are some negative aspects to the S500 scanner. Since it is designed to be used primarily as a document scanner you can scan only sheet-fed individual documents. You cannot scan books or any other bound materials unless you unbind them into individual sheets. There is no Twain driver for the S500 scanner (Fujitsu sells other scanner models that do have a Twain driver), so you cannot make scans within other programs -- instead, all scans have to be made through the SnapScan program, which can then direct them to the programs mentioned earlier in this review. This limits the software you can use with the S500 scanner. Depending upon what you intend to scan, you have to readjust the configuration settings within the SnapScan program before your scan. This is awkward and should be more automatic. It takes only seconds, however, to make these adjustments. As mentioned above, scan quality for images is somewhat poor. The S500 is not the scanner to use if you want to scan primarily images or photos. Lastly, customer service support for this scanner leaves a lot to be desired.

In summary, the Fujitsu S500 scanner is a blazingly fast, compact, high-quality scanner that comes fully-equipped with excellent software including Adobe Acrobat standard. You will find yourself looking for documents to scan with it. The scanner is well worth its higher price. If you are searching for a fast, high-quality document scanner, you need look no further. However, if you are primarily wanting high-quality image or photo scans, you will probably prefer a good flatbed image scanner. Please also note the Fujitsu S500 is a Windows-only scanner, so you will want to purchase the S500M model for usage with a Mac.

I work for a small sized consulting engineer's firm where everyday we have to scan some hundreds of pages of text (magazine articles, old projects, letters from the client, books, etc).

We got four years ago our first fujitsu scanner ( still working ) and we have been impressed with its speed, small size and since it wase easy to use to obtain good quality PDF files.

A couple of years we moved to the scansnap series. We now have four of them.

PROS :
- incredibly easy to use ( you don't need to teach anybody )
- fast for PDF scanning
- great value for money ( includes acrobat 7.0 bundled )
- very small, perfect for a desk
- good construction quality, no one of our 4 scanners ever broke

CONS :
- quality of the feeding roller is good but not professional. If you have to scan hundreds of pages you have to be on the scanner to avoid paper jams, double-feeding that some time occurs.
- not great quality for photographs scanning ( however difficult because it is not flatbed ).

I strongly suggest it for small-medium sized businesses to scan documents.

If you have to scan hundreds of pages everyday or you need a high quality scanner for photos you can find something better.

I have to say that I am incredibly impressed by the ScanSnap S500. It provides excellent quality scans that are lighting fast. The settings are pretty easy to customize and most things occur automatically when the scan takes place. It automatically scans to PDF Document format and with a little extra processing time, will run the scan through the supplied OCR(Optical Character Recognition) software to create a PDF that is fully searchable. The scanner scans both sides of a page simultaneously within the same amount of time it takes to scan just the front. So if you are scanning at Normal quality (very adequate for most situations), and have double sided originals, you will achieve roughly 36 pages per minute.

The greatest value is that the Scansnap comes with a bundled version of Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Standard (a program that usually sells for around $300). This allows you not only to create and edit PDF's from your scan's but also any Office documents, including Outlook Emails. Acrobat automatically integrates with the Office Suite on installation, which makes it incredibly easy to use Acrobat in the Office applications. One feature that I was really impressed with the ability to convert an entire Outlook folder into a PDF document.

Back to the scanner. I cannot comment on the dedicated OCR software or the business card software that is provided as I haven't tried to scan a document yet into Word or Excel directly or a business card. The documentation does state that the business card software uses OCR to enable you to transfer the contact information directly to Outlook, which would be a huge time savings for a business person who collects several cards a day.

One minor drawback is that its small footprint only accepts pages as wide as 8.5 inches. You can scan wider formats, such as 11x17 inches, but you need to fold the paper and use the carrier sheet (Plastic sheet that you insert the folded page into to scan). But this is a minor point as most of the things I see myself scanning are regular paper size or narrower.

I purchased this scanner for our business several months ago. I don't use it every day, but have scaned a hundred pages or so at a time when I do use it, which is several times per month.

The features I like:
1. Very fast at scanning, makes very few mistakes.
2. Scans double sided docs well.
3. Compact - it folds up to less than the size of a printer when not in use.
4. Software is great for quick conversion to pdf files.

The only issue I have with it is that it mis-feeds once in a while

I am very please with this purchase and would recommend this product to others. A great value and price for quick scanning to pdf format.

While a nice product packed with great features when it works, the bottom line is that it does NOT support TWAIN drivers, meaning you can not scan through ANY application other than ScanSnap. BIG MINUS.
Second minus is JAMS, JAMS, JAMS. I have barely used this machine, but the double feeds are incredible (the rollers are new and the machine is clean). I even tried using high grade color laser copier paper, but STILL double feeds big time! Upon occasion, I get a good feed, and I am so thankful for that.
If you are planning to do some serious office organizing with various types of paper, sizes and paper weights, skip this product and go for a ADF flatbed scanner. This baby will JAM up your day and consume all of your time with fiddling, reorganizing the misfeeds and clearing jams.
Think deeply before buying this one. Also, with an ADF flatbed, you can scan books, and unusual documents (thin paper, very heavy paper) that an ADF (and the ScanSnap) won't process by simply lifting the lid of the ADF and taking the scan directly on the glass. With ScanSnap, you are screwed.

Summary:

I've had this scanner for seven months, and it is terrific. It has (literally) revolutionized the way I think about paperwork and documents in my home office. A friend recommended it to me after using the predecessor for many years, and he and I both recommend it very highly.

Speed and Quality:

The ScanSnap S500 is a great scanner for documents, bills, paperwork, etc., and the occasional photo. It is fast and has excellent scan quality, which is selectable. I choose to run at a moderate resolution scan, since mostly I scan bills and documents, and it scans faster this way (and uses less disk space). Scan quality/speed is user-selectable, though not on a per-document basis - if you want a different resolution, you have to change the default scan quality, do your scan, and change it back. But I've chosen a moderate-range which works well for nearly everything I need, so I rarely have to change the settings.

Note that the highest-quality scans use quite a bit more disk space than lower-quality, so you'll want to evaluate how important the quality is to you. But if you need the quality, it's there for you.

Size:

The unit has an amazingly small form factor. The photos make it look bigger, but once it's on your desk it uses little space. And if you take off the bottom paper guide it's even more compact.

Ease of Setup:

Very simple and easy to set up. It plugs in via USB 2.0, just hit the Scan button and off it goes. It signals the attached PC, which initiates the scan operation (and the optional Character Recognition - see below).

Included Software:

One of the great bonuses is that this product includes a fully-functional version of Adobe Acrobat. This is a great "plus", because the documents are stored in PDF format making them easy to access and search later. And I've found many uses for Acrobat that I never imagined before. (It probably is part of the reason this scanner is expensive, but a good copy of Acrobat will run you over $250 by itself.) You can save it to other formats, but I've never tried it; PDF does everything I need.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is also included. This has proven to be a great add-on. This product identifies text, and includes it as part of the PDF document. This allows you to search scanned PDF documents for text - which is a HUGE plus! The only downside is that the scanning is slow and takes a while to complete - a dialog box shows you the progress, but you can cancel the OCR if you don't want to wait. A faster PC will really help here, since it's CPU-intensive.

Automatic Feeder:

If I had any complaints, it's with the automatic feeder. It jams from time to time until you learn the tricks of how to make it feed well. Yes, you can feed 20-30 pages at one time, but just dropping a bunch of paper will result in multiple pages coming through at one time (and the scanner can detect this, and signal a paper jam). Here's how to avoid this:

Rifle the page ends before scanning. You want to actually BEND the pages significantly, so that each page has a good "kink" in each one. You'll think you're way overdoing it, but trust me - just a little "ruffle" on the edges won't do it. By rifling or twisting each page slightly, it feeds most documents easily and automatically.

Is this a nuisance? Yes. A big one? No. I've grown accustomed to it, and most of the time I'm only scanning 1-2 pages anyway.

Don't try to feed documents with holes in them, or which are very thick or are adhesive-backed - they'll jam. It's easy to clear a jam if it happens, but the page might get a little bunched up in the process. Also, vit only handles pages 8.5 inches wide, so don't plan on using it for 11x17 or poster-size docs unless you want to cut it into smaller sizes. But it does smaller size documents (post cards, receipts, etc.) just fine.

How I Use It:

I now scan every document that comes in - bills, invoices, check stubs, financial records, you name it - and shred the original afterward. No more piles of documents to file every December. No more digging for old financial records in boxes - it's all online and ready to go. Just be sure to back it all up carefully. If security is a concern, you can apply a password to the PDF documents as you save them, to provide a measure of protection. It has made my office nearly paperless, except for the shredder bin. :)

This is a great scanner for the "Pro-Sumer", the consumer with a need for professional-style handling of documents, or even the small office or business with reasonable document needs. For bigger offices, with large volumes to scan, I'd consider a more professional document-fed unit, but for many people the ScanSnap S500 is the perfect solution. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Installed the software, plugged it in, and it works great. All I have to do is press the button, and it scans cleanly and quickly. Because it works so well, I have turned into a scanning maniac; everything is now getting archived on the computer. Takes very little desktop space. Good buy, especially for the money.

While expensive, this is the scanner model that I assign to employees where I work. As the IT manager, I look for "low maintenance" and ease of use. The average employee who has never used a scanner finds this very easy due to the software. It can be set up to "scan to a PDF attachment in email" or other options, such as having default save to locations like the network.

I have never had to have one repaired or and other type of maintenance. Scanning both sides at the same time is very fast and helpful. Very pleased with all the Scansnaps I have where I work.

This is one scanner that really will help employees reduce the use of paper who aren't challenged to otherwise.