Why Buy A Fujitsu S1500 ScanSnap Scanner?

Thinking about getting a document and/or photo scanner for your office(s)? This article discusses why you should buy the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 Scanner as your scanner solution! Fujitsu's ScanSnap Scanner is simply the best document scanner today, providing great value, reliability and fast high-quality performance.

Let me just quickly bullet-point the "pros" of this scanner right here. Check out the rest of this article for more great information, including a list of "cons" where this may not be the right scanner for you.

Why Buy Fujitsu's ScanSnap S1500 Scanner?

1. Simple - "One-Touch" operation
2. Fast - Easily scans typical office documents at 20 pages per minute (B&W and color)
3. Duplex - Dual-scanners allows you to scan double-sided pages just as fast as single-sided pages, in one pass.
4. ADF - You can put up to 50 pages in the Auto-Document Feeder. (Also this is not the limit to one scan. If you've got a 150 page document, then simply divide it up and keep adding to the ADF as pages get scanned.)
5. Flexible - Supports various size pages (even within one pass), auto-detects single vs. double sided, color vs. B&W, save into PDF or JPG file formats, and ability to define different "scanning profiles", allowing you to preselect configuration settings depending on what you are going to scan.
6. Adobe Acrobat 9 Standard - A powerful software application that gives you full control over PDF documents! Retailing at $299 if purchased separately, the Fujitsu S1500 ScanSnap bundles this software free with the scanner. This was the best "hidden" benefit for me, and is an absolute "must" in managing your electronic documents.
   

Most people's experience with "scanning" is through the scanner function of their multi-function printing machines. These all-in-one machines, especially in the price range of under $500 have horrible scanning performance.

My first attempt to start my paperless office was done using the scanner function of my All-In-One laser printer. The scanner function had to be done with the machine's "flat-bed", so I was scanning only one single-sided page for each pass. Scanning one page easily took 15 seconds. This was basically unusable!

If I was scanning a 5 page single-sided document, I would literally scan the first page, save it to a file in TIF format. Take out the first page, place the second page, scan it, save it to file name #2. Take out the page, put in the third page... well, you see where this is going.

And since it would scan to TIF format, each file with one page would be unnecessarily big! Often times, especially for photos, the scanning function would fail. It would just stop and freeze up my computer. Now this was a long time ago, and I have to imagine that multi-function printers can scan much better now. I know many of them at least scan into PDF file formats.

I believe most people that do their scanning with an All-In-One machine have a similar experience. No wonder many people say they do not have a need for scanning documents very often. The typical scanners people have with their printers are simply not a viable option for supporting any kind of electronic document management system.

On the other-hand... I think an All-In-One machine will be just fine for your scanning needs if you truly only need to scan occasionally, like 2-3 times a month. In this case, a dedicated document scanner probably is not necessary. If you already have a scanner built-in to your All-In-One machine, then hopefully that should continue to meet your scanning needs.

But if you want to scan more, or have a need to scan daily or even weekly, then the a dedicated stand-alone scanner like the ScanSnap S1500 is by far the best scanner to buy.

For more ideas, tips and solutions to support a more effective and productive small business and home office, visit my "Paperless Office Solutions" blog.