Portable scanner recommendations?

On Jun 4, 2007, at 5:23 AM, Big Steve wrote:

> I'm writing to request people's recommendations for a portable scanner. My
> situation is that I'm doing library research, and need to make copies of
> articles in journals.

Planon has several models of the Docupen, which is a supremely
portable full-page scanner:
http://www.planon.com/

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
___________________________________________

If you want to OCR you may wish to use a scanner.

If a digicam shot is just as useful, a tripod copy adapter for the
filter ring can be useful. I have never seen a portable scanner that
gets into the inner margin of books. If everything is to be copied from
open out flat journals, then somebody will recommend a good model or
three that do your job.

We have not got to the digital library stage of civilization by a long
shot, yet, have we!

George

I find the LiDE series quite useful, and they live through USB without a mains supply. A suggestion: _only_ install the driver, and not their bloated software beyond that. Then control the scanner via Applications>Image Capture.app, a gem with unexpected usefulness.

An alternative to the scanR service is to use qipit

<http://qipit.com>

qipit allows you to send digital pictures of your documents via http upload, e-mail, or picture messaging, from a DSC or a camera phone. In my tests, while it performs similar cleaning to scanR, it is better in detecting your document edges and therefore preserves more securely the integrity of your information. Qipit also has a color copy mode if you want to preserve font colors in documents.

Plus, with qipit, you can store your copies online, tag them for later retrieval, etc...

The service is currently free and allows you to store up to 100 pages online simultaneously, as well as fax them (free for now).

Hope this answers your needs : if you want to operate in real time, then I would favor a very good camera phone such as the Sony-E K790. This allows you to either submit your pictures to qipit via picture messaging, or to transfer them to your MacBook via Bluetooth and send them via e-mail to copyqipit.com or colorqipit.com onwards.

Else, any DSC capable of shooting paper at short distance will meet your needs, while though adding some manipulation through a memory card or a USB cable.

-- Newt (old TidBits fan, started reading it in plain text back in 1994)

For compact portability, I would consider a document feed scanner, or a digital camera with a good macro mode. I have a DocketPORT 465 that I use with Receipt Wallet/Document Wallet and it works great. It has TWAIN drivers for Mac PPC/Intel which are clean and simple. It's small, lightweight, and allows me to just feed paper and go. I've fed a hundred cancelled checks through it in under 10 minutes. It's great for cleaning out file cabinets.

For copying from journals however, that doesn't help. If you need an 8.5 x 11 piece of glass with a lid, your scanner is no longer small and light by comparison. The few times I've needed to scan something else, I've used the macro mode on my 6 MP camera with good results. With a little attention to positioning, even small text is very readable. What I find more significant is software that makes your work flow easy so you can quickly capture what you want and find it again when you're ready. Document Wallet is surprisingly good for such an inexpensive app. It just saves everything as PDF with customizable tags for future reference (kind of like iPhoto for documents). The key is you need a decent TWAIN driver for your scanner.

- Peter

I do a lot of "document copying" in the field. (I'm an anthropologist working in rural Australia and often collect "family history" data and photographs.) I take a Canon Lide 50 with me, which does a good job, but is slow to use if you have a large body of material to deal with. I also take an Olympus digital camera.

The Lide produces a better image than the camera , but the camera is more than adequate for most purposes, especially if you use a tripod / copy stand and is MUCH faster to use. Some institutions seem happier for you to use a camera than a flatbed scanner, too.

If you are after small quantities of high quality copying, then get a scanner. If you are going to be dealing with large quantities of material though, then the camera will save you a great deal of time.

Yes, the software that comes with the Lide is pretty scratchy. In my case I found the cut down version of "Omniscan" that came with it completely useless. The Canoscan Toolbox software does a reasonable job of OCR all by itself, however, if you scan to pdf files with the appropriate settings. ReadIris offers better OCR than Omniscan these days IMHO, but unfortunately needs a "twain" driver for direct use with a scanner. The Canon Lide doesn't use "twain". You can still use ReadIris for OCR if you wish by scanning to image files and processing later , though.

Of course the digitisation of academic journal articles has made great strides in recent years, so if the journals you use are reasonably common ones then you may already be able to obtain them in digitised form. In my case, for example, I can now get back issues of just about all significant British and US anthropological journals in digital form , dating right back to the mid 1800's.

Cheers

Rod

Try Snapter software, a product that competes with scanr and qipit but that is much better.

On 6/06/2007, at 11:38 AM, Michael Bach wrote:

> A suggestion: _only_ install the driver, and not their bloated
> software beyond that. Then control the scanner via
> Applications>Image Capture.app, a gem with unexpected usefulness.

I thank you for posting this nugget. With the Image Capture app, my
previously impossible to use & 'only works with the family PC'
Lexmark printer/copier/scanner has become a usable and useful
companion for my iBook.

As always, I should have read my OS X Missing Manual more closely
because Image Capture is quite a well featured app, even downloading
voice/sound from digital cameras.

Much appreciated.

bnug
--
http://bignoseduglyguy.tumblr.com
http://bigboysbrunch.wordpress.com/

...but is only available on Windows?


[Yeah, sorry, Snapter does seem to be a Windows thing, though Qipit and Scanr are Web-based. -Adam]


On 8/07/2007, at 10:31 PM, neoportal wrote:

> Try Snapter software, a product that competes with scanr and qipit
> but that is much better.

--
http://bignoseduglyguy.tumblr.com
http://bigboysbrunch.wordpress.com/

Could you please substantiate how Snapter "is much better" ?

If I am correct,

1/ Snapter does not run on MacOS X which is the computer used by Steve McCabe. Qipit, as a service, is totally platform agnostic and will convert any picture of a document into a scan of such document

2/ Snapter does not deskew/dewarp (at least per my tests) which is done automagically by Qipit

3/ Snapter does not support complementary services such as tagging, 1-click publishing, ...

Please let us know your findings in these areas,

Newt