New scanner recommendations

You didn’t mention volume. For low volume, you could use your phon or iPad with Scanner Pro by Readdle. It has an auto mode, of sorts that speed up the process. When it detects a page in the camera’s view, it takes a pic. Pretty easy to flip through a doc with one hand while holding the phone with the other.

https://readdle.com/scannerpro

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We picked up a Brother sheet fed
scanner for my wife and it can
output to a USB stick. It’s
fantastic. I don’t recall the model,
Cost about $350.

Chris, that is so awesome! I’ve had Keyboard Maestro for a couple of years but I never noticed it could trigger from a USB device connected. Upon reading this I immediately tried it out and it worked perfectly. This is the best tip I’ve ever seen on this forum :slight_smile: I guess I really need to spend some further time learning Keyboard Maestro! I use it daily, but just do the same few things.

As for scanner recommendations, I agree with many others here, I’ve got a Fujitsu S1500M that I’ve had for 8 years and I’ve probably run 20,000 pages thru it. I love love love the hardware, it’s super fast and bulletproof. It appears to me that there’s no reason it couldn’t run another 8 years. The software, on the other hand, has always been super clunky. And I think it’s inexcusable that they are not supporting older scanners with the newer software. They charge a fortune for these devices, claiming that you pay more for quality. The hardware lives up to this, but if the software goes away, what good is quality hardware? I need a second scanner for a new office, but I’m really reluctant to give Fujitsu any further money at this point. For my existing scanner, I’ll probably hook it up to an older Mac mini once it doesn’t work on my every day machine, and just run it over VNC.

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Thanks! I believe I originally learned that trick from @katiefloyd.

I’m in a similar position to the original poster. I had always assumed I would be getting a Fujitsu but clearly many users are having issues with them. I would love to hear from any owners of Brother scanners. I have a Brother multifunction printer which has been great for over eight years. However, it does not have duplex scanning.

I’m sure you all have seen this link. They don’t discuss the higher end Fujitsu. https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-portable-document-scanner/

As @drfierce noted,Wirecutter’s top two picks were $200 Brother units and their ‘upgrade’ pick was a $600 Epson.

Two weeks ago PCmag also listed their top document scanners (check for Mac compatibility), and none of the top 10, ranging from $150-$3000, were Fujitsu models:

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Ouch.

Both of those seem like very bad signs for Fujitsu. Not even getting a mention is pretty severe.

I don’t scan enough to justify buying a new one when this one dies, but I’d still be interested to know what people find as a better alternative.

While I use my ScanSnap at home, at work I’ve been doing occasional scanning using my iPhone; either using the feature built into Notes or the Scanner Pro app.

They deserved it. I mean, at some point in time my Canon all-in-one wasn’t supported anymore too. But that was a less than $100 devices. Not a $300 single purpose thing like the ScanSnap.

I own a ScanSnap but with the new software update, I can’t recommend it. If I was in the market for a new scanner, I doubt I’d buy Fujitsu right now.

This is particularly maddening. After not paying attention, upgrading to Mojave and discovering that I can only install Scansnap home on a limited number of computers I was livid. Really wish companies that did this were constantly and completely shamed so it goes away. I won’t be purchasing another Fujitsu product and I ADORE my scan snap

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I believe that you can still use the old software on Mojave. It will be the next version of OS X that makes it impossible to use, because it is only 32-bit.

That may at least be a temporary reprieve.

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Any thoughts on Epson vs Brother?l

i have an Epson gt-s50 that no longer works with movaje.

https://www.epson.eu/viewcon/corporatesite/products/mainunits/faq/8205/3074

For the past 4 years, I’ve owned the ScanSnap iX500. I couldn’t recommend it more highly, especially now that I’ve installed the much-improved 64-bit “ScanSnap Home” operating software. Amazingly, I’ve never had a paper jam with the ix500, which can feed up to 50 pages for fast single-sided or double-sided scanning.

In the flatbed scanning world the two biggest consumer manufacturers are Epson and Canon. But Brother makes good scanners too - I know at least one person with a Brother all-in-one fax/scanner/laser-printer that’s worked well for years.

I’ve nuked and paved my mac, reinstalled mojave and still cannot get the scanner to work.

Yes, many owners of the ScanSnap iX500 have had a relatively good experience for a few years. They apparently were not bothered by (or didn’t notice) the substantial problems with OCR and with scanning to multi-page PDF files from late 2016 to early 2017 due to Fujitsu’s software update problems (related to a macOS update; see post #14 above).

The iX500 was introduced in January 2013 - 6 years ago. The S1500M (my model, functionally similar except for wireless capability) was introduced in July 2009 - 9 1/2 years ago and just became effectively obsolete. The new software can’t be used and no software updates will be available going forward. The scanner will not function with current software after macOS enforces its already-announced 64-bit software restriction.

Two questions:
1.When will the ix500 become obsolete, given the history of the S1500M? (No answer expected; no way to know this)
2. Did the software upgrade for your iX500 come with the restriction that it is limited to your current computer? Another forum member (I think it was @tomalmy) elsewhere on this forum made this observation, as did @fubar in this thread.

To be clear on this (well, at least as clear as mud), you can move it to another computer if you uninstall the license on the first computer before you install on the second. Additionally, there is a limited number of moves over time so you can’t use the scanner with two computers and bounce the license back and forth. If you buy a new iX1500 you get five licenses and can buy more (you can’t buy more than the one when you upgrade the software on the iX500.

Considering that the software can only be used with Fujitsu scanners and you can’t pirate the scanner, having a license file for the scanner software is totally absurd, offering no benefit to Fujitsu and nothing but grief to their customers.

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