April 21, 2010
FUJITSU SCANSNAP S1500 FOLLOWUP
Last year I wrote critical comments about the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 desktop scanner’s lack of a TWAIN driver. There’s a way around that shortcoming – one of those tips that’s easy when you find out about it but apparently not obvious, since Fujitsu’s Product Marketing Manager felt he had to write a blog post to point it out. The tip is below; let me give you some background about it.
The S1500 is a very likable scanner at a time when small businesses and law offices are scanning everything they see.
- Inexpensive all-in-one printer/scanners are too slow for anything other than casual use. I hate watching people’s faces fall when their new all-in-one slowly . . . deliberately . . . gently eases the first piece of paper through the feeder and pauses for a moment as it mulls over the next page.
- The big floor-standing leased units used to be called “copiers,” but now they’re more accurately called “scanners.” They suck pages through at the speed of light and create PDFs with wild abandon. They’re also expensive and fragile.
- In the middle are the surprisingly small desktop units. For a long time the best choices were the Xerox Documate 152 ($400) and Xerox Documate 252 ($850).
Last year Fujitsu got positive reviews when it introduced the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 ($420), with faster scan speeds at the same price as the Documate 152. When I ran into it last year, it upset me that Fujitsu did not let the scanner talk to the computer through an industry-standard TWAIN driver. As near as I could tell, all scanning had to be done with Fujitsu’s proprietary software instead of scanning directly from Adobe Acrobat 9. Fujitsu advertised that as a strength. Here’s Fujitsu’s graphic about the wonderfulness of its “Rack2-Filer” software.
“Virtual binders” and “virtual cabinets” make me do virtual throw up in my virtual mouth. I see proprietary interfaces with a learning curve that distracts from more productive time spent learning the power of Adobe Acrobat.
A simple change in the Fujitsu ScanSnap software sends scans directly to Adobe Acrobat. The scan still has to be started from the Fujitsu software but it can arrive in Acrobat with no intermediate steps. That’s not the way the scanner software was installed by default when I worked with it, and the Product Manager admits that “the standard profile is often changed by the user without realizing it.” Apparently the settings can also be lost if a new version of Acrobat is installed.
The instructions are easy.
- Turn off the Quick Menu.
- Select the Standard Profile.
- On the “Application” tab, select “Adobe Acrobat” from the pull down menu.
- Click “Apply” and “Ok” to save these changes to your profile.
With that change, the Fujitsu becomes a pretty appealing choice for a small, fast scanner.
16 Responses to “FUJITSU SCANSNAP S1500 FOLLOWUP”
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November 10th, 2010 at 11:06 am
Hi Bruce, very good input, thanks. I’m considering the purchase of an S1500 based on the excellent reviews. I do have one application concern and it has to do with my light weight use of “deposit from home” of scanned checks into my bank account. The bank application requires a TWAIN or WIA compatible scanner. I ruled out the S1500 working until your entry provided a glimmer of hope. I still don’t think the S1500 will be compatible with the bank application — but what do YOU think? Thanks.
sg
November 10th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
I can’t find a definitive answer but I don’t think the S1500 comes with a WIA driver, and it definitely doesn’t have a TWAIN driver. The bank software most likely just wouldn’t see it. It really is a bit frustrating, isn’t it?
November 20th, 2010 at 5:45 pm
Bruce,
Great info. Thanks for writing it.
I have been using a Xerox MFP – awesome unit. The scan quality is second to none. However, I need a small scanner for another office. I am wondering if the S1500M really straightens out any crooked PDF’s automatically without cropping off edges?
Also, I attach the PDF’s to QuickBooks transactions so file size is important. When you have to send your accountant the final QBB file, those sizes add up. Can u tell me what an average file size of a single sided scan is? Fujitsu’s customer service doesn’t seem to have that info.
Thanks again!
Jeff
July 7th, 2011 at 3:36 pm
I AGREE SO MUCH. This scanner has the best form factor and the best quality/price combo. But it has no TWAIN driver so instead of making your life better, it makes your life worse because it doesn’t work with your preferred scanning software. This is a post that explains why they didn’t include a TWAIN driver; basically they don’t care about users who want to use TWAIN compliant software. The “virtual binders” thing is especially offensive; there’s already a way of organizing files on a computer, it’s called DIRECTORIES. This all makes my blood boil. Interestingly, Ubuntu’s native scanning program, SimpleScan, is able to use this scanner without a problem.
September 9th, 2011 at 6:02 pm
Thanks a lot for this review.
Unfortunately, we got this one and then moved to a new office and lost the disc with the software. I’d expect to find it on their site as I thought it would be specific to these devices, but I only could find “updates” to it. Am I out of luck and need to buy their software?
Thanks in advance for any input you may have.
September 10th, 2011 at 11:53 am
I think you’ll have to call them and see what you can find out. I don’t see anywhere to download the full software package either. On a handful of times I’ve had to navigate Fujitsu’s web site looking for a driver for a different model. It was a nightmare – poorly organized pages, and a hellish experience that required filling in forms with the indecipherable serial number from the scanner and waiting for an email with a download link. I don’t even see an entry point for that process for the S1500. Good luck!
September 12th, 2011 at 6:51 pm
Thanks Bruce. We will call them and try to find out. It is a small comfort to know we are not the only ones suffering their site.
Thanks again,
Andres.
November 15th, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Hmm. I really need a Twain compliant fast doc scanner (for acquiring straight into Dental Practice Management Software (now there’s a vertical market for you)… There is a Canon product, the 2010C, which is sorta OK (fast, but the doc feed mechanism is not all that robust).
Anybody found any good alternatives. I think Fujitsu has taken a really wonderful piece of hardware and blown it with the lack of TWAIN. Why the heck won’t they fix this? How hard could it be to just publish a driver?
Too bad, so sad, Fujitsu…
November 15th, 2011 at 1:07 pm
There’s bound to be something out there but I haven’t seen anything but Fujitsu scanners for the last couple of years. The proprietary stuff drives me crazy – it would be so easy and so helpful to have a standard TWAIN driver! Or a competitor. One or the other.
Good luck!
November 15th, 2011 at 2:00 pm
I’m going for the Epson GT-S50 – just ordered two of these at $309 apiece – they get pretty great reviews and have a TWAIN interface, of course!
Good Luck out there!
-Bruce
December 7th, 2011 at 10:43 am
Hi Bruce, any idea if there is a new version of the Fujitsu S 1500 coming out anytime soon? I need to buy a new scanner. Thanks, Tom
December 9th, 2011 at 3:35 pm
I don’t know what the significance is of Fujitsu’s announcement a couple of weeks ago about “updates.” http://www.fujitsu.com/in/news/pr/fapl_20111411.html It looks like the same model numbers and I can’t tell if the hardware has been refreshed. It might just be a software update. In any case, I don’t have any information about any completely new models – which doesn’t mean there won’t be one introduced tomorrow or next month, it just means I haven’t heard about it. Good luck!
December 31st, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Thanks for the info Bruce. Much appreciated. If you hear of any new Models please let me know. I’ve been researching for a good home/office desktop document scanner for under $500. The Fujitsu so far looks like the best one out there and it comes with Adobe which I think costs over $100 to buy on it’s own. Aloha and Happy New Year! Tom
January 22nd, 2012 at 4:53 pm
[...] so slow that it’s effectively unusable. The OfficeJet Pro 8600 Plus does not hold a candle to Fujitsu’s ScanSnap S1500, which sucks pages through at a blinding rate and is still the only scanner that most busy offices [...]
January 27th, 2012 at 10:24 am
So from your expertise, is there no way to have the scanner work with a software program? We are using TAM (Applied Systems) that hold our clients and information. I want to be able to send my scan document not to just my email, but to the clients file on the computer in TAM. I have tried everything and I am sure there is some way to do this. Can you help me with this?
January 27th, 2012 at 11:45 am
I don’t know. TAM will probably not be able to communicate directly with the scanner. Almost every program that includes a Scan feature expects to find a standard TWAIN driver to talk to, and that’s what Fujitsu doesn’t supply. It might require a manual process to scan the image, locate it where it’s dropped by the Fujitsu software, rename it, move it to a better folder, and import it. (Or a variation on that process using Acrobat instead of Fujitsu’s software.) Obviously that’s a pain but you wouldn’t be the first company I know doing something like that. And it’s worth keeping in mind – the ScanSnap’s reputation is strong but there are other scanners out there. Xerox still makes its little desktop scanner, for example, similar in size, which I think provides a TWAIN driver. It’s a small expense if it’s business-critical.