December, 1996
You've Got the Whole World In Your Hand
Scanners don't have to fill your room. They don't have to sprawl across your desk. Tiny units - for photos, slides, documents, business cards, even single words - now fit in your briefcase. Your pocket. Your hand. And your budget.
We all like to
create beautiful things with our computers and pretend it's no big deal. Scanners help us take "real-world" images and make them part of presentations, Web pages, invitations and brochures.
When we think of scanners, most of us think of those big flat-bed scanners you see on the desk of the art director or your favorite neighborhood technophile. Or we think of the monster paper gobblers that slave away in paper factories, scanning page after page at high speed.
These impressive, sometimes intimidating machines are great for scanning standard business, legal and in-between size pages. They boast the latest technology and the absolute best scanning ability.
But in many cases, these large scanners are overkill. There are some jobs they just can't handle because of their size and lack of portability.
That's when you need a smaller, hand-held or small-footprint scanner. These let you scan single lines, words, photos, business cards and other tiny items. Capture a page in two swipes of a hand scanner. Even scan the labels on designer shirts and images in other hard-to-scan places.
Specialty scanners for slides, cards, photos and lines of text have become available in an increasing variety. They perform quite well when you consider their size and price. These niche products are optimized for specific tasks. When you need such a unit, there is no substitute.
Mightier Than The Sword
The smallest and most flexible scanner is the pen type. These scanners usually weigh less than four ounces and fit in your hand like a pen or highlighter.
They let you scan single words or single lines of text with no problem. Just slide the unit over the targeted text and the words appear instantly on your screen. These highly functional devices range from $200 to $400.
The size of these units is not the only thing that makes them portable. They typically require no external power, so using them with laptops is as simple as plugging them into a parallel port.
The DataPen Personal Text Scanner from Storm Technology (Cambell, CA 408-522-1200) is a self-powered, text-only unit that plugs into a parallel port. Scan directly into any Windows application. Like most other pen-type scanners, the DataPen comes with a powerful array of OCR and editing software.
The IRISPen ($300) from I.R.I.S. (Boca Raton, FL 407-395-7831) is a very capable self-powered pen-type scanner that also plugs into a parallel port and will work in any Windows application. The company claims a scanning rate of about 100 characters per second.
The Executive software package add-on turns IRISPen into a barcode reader. In addition, it lets the scanner recognize numeric handwriting. A real benefit for form-reading applications and numeric
data entry.
The Executive module also adds speech synthesis to the IRISPen. Imagine being able to have the text you scan read back to you by your PC! Someone who is dyslexic or has trouble reading English could benefit greatly from this feature. It also allows for "eyes-free" confirmation. If that's not enough for you, the product can read and recognize words in 11 languages.
The WordWand from WordWand (Stateline, NV 702-588-4328) is another handy pen-type scanner with excellent accuracy. It comes with its own suite of OCR and editing software. The WonderWand is self-powered, weighs just three ounces and also acts as a barcode reader. It works in Windows applications and is ideal for use with a notebook.
Handy Dandy Hand Scanners
The larger cousins of these pen-based scanners are the four-to-six-inch-wide hand scanners. These units typically provide a higher-quality scan and can handle half-page scans.
Color scanning is the default for these scanners. They typically support 24-bit color at 400 to 800 dots per inch. They are lightweight and they usually come with robust software suites.
The new ScanMan Color 2000 from Logitech (Fremont, CA 510-795-8500) is a low-priced solution ($130) that provides 400 x 800 dpi resolution, 24-bit color and a total of 16.8 million colors. I think this is the best color support of any scanner in this class. It connects to a parallel port and weighs 16 ounces.
ScanMan Color 2000 comes bundled with an impressive array of software for OCR and image editing. The combination of Adobe Photoshop for image editing and Xerox Textbridge for OCR is the best software bundle we've seen accompanying a small scanner.
The Color Artist Pro ($165) hand scanner from Mustek (Irvine, CA 714-250-8855) provides 24-bit color and a 16.7-million color palette at 800 dpi. It comes with a robust software bundle.
The downside to this scanner is that it needs an interface card. This means it's no good for a laptop.
Mustek recently filled this need by coming out with their new Plug N' Scan, a 24-bit color portable scanner with 800 dpi resolution. This plug-and-play scanner attaches to a notebook using a PC Card or PCMCIA-type interface. It's lightweight -- 13 ounces. Best of all, it requires no external battery or power adapter.
If a portable hand scanner is what you need, this is the perfect solution. It comes with a full array of software for OCR and image editing. At less than $200, it's a great value for such a well thought-out portable scanner.
Do you have stray business cards floating around
every corner of your home or office? How many of these "important" contacts eventually get lost? You might be a good candidate for a business card scanner.
Business card scanners have been around for a while. These scanners offer no technical advantage over an inexpensive grayscale hand-held unit bundled with business-card OCR software. But a dedicated business card scanner is more convenient if you collect lots of cards and manage lots of contacts.
The market for these products has grown in the last few years, leading to an increased number of choices from various vendors. The most commonly offered resolution is 400 dpi. The main differences are price, size, speed and bundled software.
OCR accuracy rates are most critical in this application. Avoiding typos is obviously a key factor. But determining, say, which line is the address and which line is the phone or fax number is key to an effective solution. All this information goes directly into the software's business card database, so it has to be correct.
Support for batch processing is also critical. You should be able to scan, recognize and store multiple cards by feeding cards in batches. Without this, you will be forced to stop after every scan to recognize, edit and store each entry to the database. That will waste the very time you bought the scanner to save in the first place!
The BizCard Reader from UMAX (Fremont, CA 510-651-4000) is a neat little card reader that links to programs like ACT! contact management software, which -- in my case -- makes life really easy. Scanning a business card automatically creates a new contact for you. This plug ưn' play unit connects via the parallel port.
The CardIRIS from I.R.I.S. recognizes multiple languages. Its database allows for autodialing and mail merging -- tools that make contact management easy.
Two other companies that provide business card readers are Corex (Cambridge, MA 617-492-4200) and MicroTek (Redondo Beach, CA 310-297-5000).
Some high-end models come from Nikon (Melville, NY 516-547-4200) and Polaroid (Fairfax, VA 703-641-8544). While highly effective, they're also pricey, ranging from $1,600 to $2,500.
The Nikon CoolScan and the Polaroid SprintScan are two high-quality photo and slide scanners. These single-pass color units scan slides, negatives and photos at resolutions as high as 2700 dpi.
Storm Technology offers an inexpensive photo scanner. Their EasyPhoto Reader is a 1200 dpi 24-bit color scanner. The scanner's small footprint is a HUGE plus.
This basic scanner comes with a good manual, a Photoshop plug-in and a cable. Just insert the image and it scans. Easy! The image size is limited to 5x7 (because of the small footprint). The quality of a raw scan is pretty good. Photoshop allows you to work with it so you can really use the image. The software controls that come with EasyPhoto are easy to use and you'll use them often.
This scanner is well worth the money. It's fast and efficient and gives you pretty good scans. It saves in JPEG and PICT formats. This is great if you are working on the Web. You can scan and get images up on your Web site in no time.
Kodak (Rochester, NY 716-724-4000) has a snapshot photo scanner. This is a small scanner that can handle scans up to 11" long. It scans at 600 dpi in 24-bit color. It includes software and connects via the parallel port on your PC.
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