Epson WorkForce Pro GT-S50

Physically, Epson WorkForce Pro GT-S50 (which comes with a standard one year warranty) is typical for document scanners in its price range. It measures 8.4 by 11.9 by 8.0 inches (HWD) with the input and output trays closed, or 15.9 by 11.9 by 15 inches with the trays extended. Setup is typical as well. Set the scanner in place, open the top cover (which turns into the input tray), extend the output tray at the bottom front, install the software, and plug in a USB cable and power cord.

I installed the scanner under Windows Vista, but according to Epson Epson WorkForce Pro GT-S50 also comes with drivers and a full set of software for Windows 2000 and XP. Epson says it comes with drivers and a nearly full set of software for Mac OS X, as well, supporting versions 10.3.9 through 10.5x. (The document management software, however, is for Windows only.) For Windows, the trio of Twain, WIA, and ISIS drivers ensures that you can scan directly from virtually any Windows program with a scan command.

In addition to the drivers and the Epson scan utility, Epson includes an assortment of programs appropriate for a document scanner Abbyy FineReader 6.0 Sprint Plus for optical character recognition, Nuance ScanSoft PaperPort Special Edition for document management, and NewSoft Presto! BizCard 5 SE for business cards. All three are among the most common programs bundled with scanners, and all do their jobs reasonably well. Unfortunately, PaperPort SE lacks the full version's ability to index the text in files on your disk, which lets you find files by searching for words in those files.

This is a particularly important feature if you plan to scan documents to searchable PDF format and need to find the right document quickly at some later time. If you want that ability, you'll need a separate indexing program. This isn't a major issue, however, since you can download Google Desktop, with its search feature, free. The scanner itself is far more impressive than the software. Epson rates it at 25 pages per minute (ppm) for simplex scans (one side of the page) and 50 images per minute (ipm) for duplex scans (scanning both sides simultaneously) at 200 pixels per inch (ppi). I timed it scanning to PDF image files at 22.7 ppm and 45.5 ipm. That's a little slower than I expected based on the ratings which are usually pretty accurate for document scanners but still fast enough to earn lots of praise.

Canon CanoScan 5600F

Setting up Canon CanoScan 5600F is absolutely typical for a flatbed scanner. Install the software, unlock the scanner, and then plug in the power cord and USB cable. I tested the scanner primarily under Windows XP, but also installed it under Vista just to confirm that it worked. Canon says it also provides drivers and a full set of programs for Windows 2000 and Mac OS 10.3.9 through 10.5.x.

The bundled software is limited to Canon's scan utility plus ArcSoft PhotoStudio 5.5 for editing photos, but the utility includes optical character recognition, so you can scan a document and turn it into editable text or a searchable PDF file. In addition to letting you start a scan using the scan utility, Canon CanoScan 5600F offers buttons on the top front of the scanner. The choices include Copy, E-Mail (to launch an e-mail message on your PC and add the scanned document as an attachment), and Scan (to bring up the Canon utility and let you choose where to send the scan).

There are also three PDF buttons one for scanning in color, one for scanning in black and white, and one custom button. To scan multipage documents to a single PDF file, you can repeatedly press the same PDF button for each new page, and then press the Finish button after the last page. Like most scanners, the 5600F comes with both Twain and WIA drivers, so you can scan from almost any Windows program with a scan command. (Of course, you'll have to buy any additional programs you want to use.)

That's something to keep in mind when you're comparing Canon CanoScan 5600F with other scanners. A more expensive scanner that already has the software you need may be less expensive than Canon CanoScan 5600F and the added software combined. The Twain driver gives you the choice between exceptional ease of use and control over the scan. The AutoScan mode literally handles everything automatically, letting you scan with a single mouse click.

If you prefer having some control over the results, the Basic mode gives you a few options to set and the Advanced mode adds far more, including such sophisticated choices as adjusting color saturation and balance. All three modes let you scan multiple photos on the flatbed at once, with each photo going to a separate file.

Plustek BookReader V100

Plustek BookReader V100, which comes with a one year parts and labor warranty, is a niche product. Plustek BookReader V100 says it's aimed primarily at libraries and other institutional users that may find it helpful to convert printed books into audiobooks, particularly for the benefit of the visually impaired. It could also see it being of great interest to someone with, say, macular degeneration, which leaves sufferers with peripheral vision only and makes reading difficult or impossible.

But what Plustek BookReader V100 doesn't do is convert printed books to audio so easily that it's worth doing yourself just so you can, say, listen to books while driving. In reality, Plustek BookReader V100 is a conventional book scanner (more on that in a moment) paired with optical character recognition (OCR) software to turn scanned images into text and text to speech (TTS) software to turn the text into audio. None of these technologies are new or even unusual. OCR software comes with most scanners, and TTS software has been around longer than Windows.

As it happens, Plustek BookReader V100 software uses the Nuance speech engine, which has been part of Nuance's OmniPage Pro 16 since the program was released in July 2007. That means the same feats you can perform using the V100 you also can perform using OmniPage Pro 16 with any scanner or using whatever OCR program came with the scanner plus a TTS program, which you can find for about $50. As for Plustek BookReader V100's implied ease of use that you can go from a book to an audiobook with the press of a button or two the description is right as far as it goes, but it leaves out the part where you have to laboriously scan the book, one page at a time.

The one advantage Plustek BookReader V100 gives you is that it's designed for books. Book pages won't lie flat on most scanners. They tend to lift up from the platen near the bound edge, and the scanned image shows the lines of text as curved. The best OCR software today can digitally straighten the lines to improve OCR accuracy, but book scanners avoid the problem altogether. With book scanners, the platen comes out to the edge of the scanner so you can lay the book down with one page flat and the facing side of the book hanging down along the side of the scanner.

This essentially eliminates the curved line issue, but it doesn't make scanning all those pages any less of a chore. Plustek BookReader V100 says that except for some changes in firmware, Plustek BookReader V100 is identical to the Plustek OpticBook 3600, which drives home the fact that it's simply a 1.200 by 1.200 pixel per inch (ppi) conventional book scanner. Plustek BookReader V100 measures 3.7 by 17.6 by 11 inches (HWD), with the front along the width, and the scanner cover lifting from front to back. To scan a book, you position the scanner at the edge of a desk or table, so that the book can hang down from the scanner unimpeded by the table. The platen itself is a bit larger than letter size. An eight button control panel resides on top of the scanner, just to the right of the scanner cover.

Pacific Image Electronics Memor-ease

Beyond these few basics, the driver adjusts all settings automatically, like a point and shoot camera. As soon as you position the film holder, you'll see a preview of the image, and you can watch the brightness, contrast, and other settings change until the driver is satisfied it's found the best settings. When the auto adjust finishes, all that's left is for you to give the Capture command. If you've turned on the option to adjust images after each capture, you may then choose from among nine variations, including lighter, darker, and various color adjustments.

As already mentioned, the camera like sensor gives the Pacific Image Electronics Memor-ease impressive speed. On my tests, the automatic adjustments typically took 6 to 8 seconds. The capture itself took just 1.9 to 2.6 seconds. As a point of reference, the Canon CanoScan 8800F is one of the faster scanners it have tested for 35mm film, prescanning and scanning one slide at 2.400 ppi in about 1 minute 30 seconds. Unfortunately, Pacific Image Electronics Memor-ease doesn't score as well on image quality as on speed.

The 1.800 ppi resolution is theoretically adequate for printing scanned photos at up to 8 by 10 inches, with a roughly 200 ppi image resolution at that size. But the actual ability to resolve detail is much less than with, for example, a 600 ppi scan of the same slides with the Canon 8800F. In one landscape scene, for instance, when it enlarged the picture enough, the scan from the Canon 8800F showed a hint of individual leaves where the scan from Pacific Image Electronics Memor-ease showed a solid smudge of color.

The relatively low resolution doesn't hurt the image much for printing at 4 by 6 inches, but it will make a noticeable difference at larger sizes. The automatic setting adjustment also compares poorly with the fully automatic modes in most scanner drivers. PIE is aware of the problem and is updating the driver to address it. PIE says the new driver will be available for downloading from the company's Web site, possibly by the time you read this.

The shortcomings in image quality make it impossible to give Pacific Image Electronics Memor-ease Digital Film Converter an unqualified recommendation. Still, if you're the sort of casual photographer Pacific Image Electronics Memor-ease is aimed at happy with snapshot quality (for lack of a better term) and not likely to print photos at sizes larger than 4 by 6 you might find the image quality acceptable, if less than ideal. Otherwise, wait for a later generation version that offers the same ease of use and fast image capture, but with better results.

Canon CanoScan LiDE 100

As is true of any flatbed scanner, the LiDE 100 is theoretically suitable for all purpose use. The software it comes with focuses primarily on photos, however, which effectively makes it a photo scanner unless you buy (or already have) additional programs. In that context, the 2,400 pixel per inch (ppi) optical resolution is overkill far beyond anything you need for scanning photos, unless you plan to enlarge a small part of a photo.

Aside from Twain and WIA drivers, which will let the scanner work with almost any Windows software that includes a scan command, the only programs bundled with the LiDE 100 are ArcSoft Photo Studio 5.5 and Canon's MP Navigator EX scan utility. MP Navigator EX includes an optical character recognition (OCR) feature that can turn a scanned text document into a searchable PDF file, but it's well short of a full featured OCR program.

The utility's main purpose is to scan and send the results to various destinations ranging from files to email attachments. It also offers its own set of photo related features for enhancing scanned photos. Setting up the LiDE 100 is easy: Install the software, and plug in the USB cable that comes with the scanner. You don't even need to plug in a power cord, since the scanner gets power over the USB cable.

It installed the scanner on a Windows XP system. According to Canon, the installation disc also includes drivers and a full set of software for Vista, Windows 2000, and Mac OS 10.3.9 through 10.5.x. Using the scanner is almost as easy as setting it up, with several options for giving a scan command. The obvious choice is to press one of the four buttons on the front panel Copy, Email, PDF, or Scan.

You can also choose from a similar set of options in one of the MP Navigator EX screens, or you can manually choose a document type (color photo, black and white photo, color document, black and white document, magazine, or text), optionally change the resolution or other settings, and then start the scan. By default, the scan is fully automatic, not even stopping to show a preview. If you want some control over the settings, however, a check box lets you tell the utility to launch the Twain driver so you can preview and adjust settings before the actual scan.

The driver itself lets you choose between scanning in Fully Automatic mode equivalent to a point and shoot mode in a camera Basic mode with just a few options, or an Advanced mode that lets you control such settings as black point, white point, saturation, and color balance. The driver also provides several digital enhancement options that make it easy to improve on the original.

A color restore feature, for example, did a good job on my tests of reviving colors in faded photos. Similarly, a dust and scratch removal feature did a reasonably good job of removing dust specks. The feature doesn't do much for scratches, but that's expected. If you need scratch removal that really works, you need to invest in a much more expensive scanner with hardware based Digital ICE.

Probably the most impressive enhancement feature in the driver is its backlight correction, a convenience that Canon scan drivers have offered for some time. Take an indoor picture of a person standing in front of a window, for example, and the face may come out as a dark silhouette against a bright background. With backlight correction, you can bring out the details in the foreground simply by turning the feature on.

Epson WorkForce GT-1500

The GT-1500, however, includes both a 40 page automatic document feeder (ADF) and a letter size flatbed. The flatbed can be useful if you need to scan book or magazine pages or other originals that won't go through a sheet feeder. Setting up the scanner is straight forward. It measures a compact 4.8 by 18.5 by 12.5 inches (HWD), which is impressively small for a scanner with both an ADF and a flatbed, and it weighs just 8.6 pounds.

Like some other document scanners with flatbeds notably, the closely competitive Canon DR-1210C it's designed to sit in landscape orientation as you face it, with the front panel on one of the long sides and the lid opening toward the back. To set up the GT-1500, simply run the automated installation routine from disc, plug in the power cord and a USB cable, and let Windows recognize the scanner.

It installed it on a Windows XP system, but according to Epson, it also comes with drivers for Windows 2000, Vista, and Mac OS 10.3x through 10.5x. For Windows, the trio of Twain, WIA, and ISIS drivers ensures that you can scan directly from virtually any Windows program with a scan command.

The software for Windows includes an optical character recognition (OCR) program (Abbyy FineReader 6.0 Sprint Plus), a document management program (ScanSoft PaperPort version 11), and Epson's own scan utility. For the Mac, the disc also includes a Twain driver and OCR software, but no document management program.

You can start a scan from a program, from Epson's scan utility, or from one of the four scan buttons on the front panel. The copy button brings up a copy utility on the PC the PDF button scans to your choice of image PDF or search able PDF format and the email button creates a new message using your PC's email program, adding the scanned document as an attachment. There's also a generic scan button that brings up the Epson scan utility, so you can scan to a file.

Available formats include Bitmap, JPEG, Multi-TIFF, TIFF, and PDF. The GT-1500's optical scan resolution is 1,200 pixels per inch (ppi) for scanning from the flatbed, but the software limits the scanner to 600 ppi for scanning from the ADF. This is a bit unusual, but 600 ppi is typical for document scanners and is more than enough resolution for scanning documents. It's even more than enough for scanning photos, unless you plan to enlarge them significantly.

HP Scanjet G3110 Photo Scanner

The G3110 comes with both Twain and WIA drivers, so you can scan from nearly any Windows program with a scan command. The Twain driver lets you easily control settings like resolution and color saturation, and it includes options for restoring color to faded photos, removing dust and scratches, and applying adaptive lighting.

The last choice automatically fixes issues like back lighting, to bring out details in objects that might otherwise come out as solid black.

The color restore, dust removal, and adaptive lighting features made a significant difference on my tests, noticeably improving scan quality for flawed originals.

The scratch removal feature didn't do much for my test photos, but that's par for the course with software based scratch removal.

The only scratch removal features I've ever seen work well are hardware based. Aside from the drivers, the software in the package has a distinctly home oriented look and feel.

For example, HP Photosmart Essential 3.5, which combines a photo album with a photo editor, doesn't bother with a menu across the top of the window or with anything as standard as a File Print command. Instead, if you want to print a photo, you click on an image of a printer. The other scan related programs are HP Document Manager and the G3110 version of HP's Solution Center, which serves as a control program for starting a scan and for customizing settings.

In addition, for Windows based computers only, the Easy Install option installs HP Smart Web Printing and the Yahoo! Toolbar for Internet Explorer 6 (or later). Both add ins are also available as free downloads for anyone.

Fujitsu ScanSnap S300

What you get for the Fujitsu's extra size and weight is both duplex scanning, which is rare in a portable scanner, and a 10 page ADF, which is rarer still if not currently unique. You also get much faster scans than with most portable scanners. Even without taking the relatively fast scan speed into account, simply using an ADF boosts overall speed compared with feeding paper manually.

It tested the S300 under Windows XP, but Fujitsu says the software also works with Windows 2000, Vista, and Vista x64. In addition, there's a version for the Mac (also $295 direct), but you can't buy a single scanner with both Mac and Windows software. Setup is reasonably typical for a portable scanner. Install the software, and plug in the cables. It departs from the norm, however, in how it gets power.

A portable scanner should be easy to connect, since you have to reconnect it every time you take it somewhere and set it up again. The ideal is to use a single USB cable for both data and power, so all you need do is boot up your computer and connect one cable to be ready to scan. According to Fujitsu, however, the S300 needs more power than it can get over a single USB cable.

So although it uses power from the data cable, it has two different ways to get the additional power it requires. The preferred choice, because it will give you the fastest scans, is to connect to a wall socket. If there isn't one available, you can get the additional power from a second USB port by connecting a special cable that plugs into the S300's power connector.

One drawback to using the USB cable instead of plugging into a wall socket is that it makes scans take twice as long. Another is that some notebooks are stingy about ports. Although these days there are myriad laptops with multiple USB ports, some have only two if yours is one of those, you won't be able to connect anything else at the same time unless you also carry a USB hub with you.

More troublesome than the power connection issue is the fact that the S300 comes with very little software, just a scan utility and two programs. CardMinder is a reasonably capable business card program. ScanSnap Organizer is a document management program with some interesting features, including the ability to connect to Microsoft SharePoint. As a desktop document manager, however it's simply not in the same league as a top tier program like Nuance PaperPort.

Microtek ArtixScan M1 Pro

Despite the M1's focus on photos, you can use it for all purpose scanning like any flatbed scanner. With that in mind, Microtek includes a Twain driver, so you can scan from most Windows programs. You also get an optical character recognition (OCR) program, Abbyy FineReader 6.0 Sprint, to convert the scanned image to editable text.

The process of scanning for OCR is a little clumsy, both because an automatic document feeder is lacking and because the scan driver is designed primarily for photos. The results, on the other hand, were more than acceptable. On my tests, the scanner recognized Times New Roman text as small as 8 points, as well as Arial text as small as 6 points, without a mistake. All the other software that comes with the M1 deals with photos.

The bundle includes Adobe Photoshop Elements for photo editing InterVideo MediaOne Gallery for enhancing, managing, and sharing photos and two scan utilities Microtek's own ScanWizard Pro and Lasersoft's SilverFast Ai Studio, a high end scanning program.

Both utilities allow color calibration, and the scanner comes with two calibration scan targets one for reflective scans and one for positive transparencies.

Installing and setting up the M1 (6.1 by 15.2 by 22.3 inches, HWD) is easy. Just remove the packing materials, unlock the scan head, and plug in the USB cable and power cord.

Installing the software should normally be just as easy. In theory, you only have to run an automated installation program from each of three discs provided. I ran into a minor problem with one of the installation routines freezing up, but I eventually managed to get everything installed.

I tested the scanner with Windows XP. According to Microtek, all of the software and drivers also work with Windows 2000 and Vista. All except MediaOne Gallery are compatible with Mac OS X 10.3 and 10.4 as well. Setting up the M1 for scanning film is easier than with most flatbed scanners.

The scanner comes with film holders for 35mm slides (up to 12 at a time), 35mm film (up to four strips of six frames each), 6cm film (one strip), and 4 by 5 inch film (up to two photos). To scan, you put the film into the appropriate film holder, then drop the film holder onto a tray that slides into the front of the scanner, much like a paper drawer sliding into a laser printer. In addition, there's a second tray with an 8.5 by 10.3 inch glass plate that can hold any size of film up to 8 by 10 inches.

Plustek SmartOffice PS282

One of the PS282's nicer touches is its small size. At just 5.8 by 10.4 by 5.0 inches (HWD) with the output tray folded over the front panel, this scanner shouldn't be hard to find room for on your desk. Installation is easy too. Plug in the power cord and supplied USB cable, and then let Windows start the setup routine from the distribution disc. It tested the scanner using Windows XP.

Plustek says the disc also includes drivers and a full set of software for Windows 2000 and Vista. Plustek has made a few minor improvements in the software since the PS252, but it hasn't addressed some of the most troublesome issues. In particular, the only way to start a one button scan is by choosing from the numbers 1 through 9 showing in the LED display on the scanner or in the pop up window in the scan utility.

Unfortunately, neither option gives any hint of the type of scan that goes with each number, so unless you memorize the list you have to look up the definitions each time you scan a step that largely eliminates the convenience a one button scan feature is supposed to give you.

The scanner also comes with a photo editor (NewSoft Presto! ImageFolio 4.5), an optical character recognition (OCR) program (Abbyy FineReader Sprint Plus 6.0), and three document management programs (NewSoft Presto! PageManager 7.1, Plustek's own DI Capture 1.0, and Hotcard's BizCard Finder 2.5).

Each of the document management programs has its own strengths. DI Capture offers the fastest scan speed. The business card program can create separate databases of business cards, text documents, and photos. PageManager makes it easy to send a scanned file to a program, printer, or other destination.

That's something the other two programs can't do because they store data in their own folder systems. Unfortunately, the separate folder systems also keep the programs from sharing information easily, so you're pretty much forced into choosing one of the three programs and ignoring the other two. Unlike most document scanners, the PS282 is much slower than its claimed speed.

It tried scanning to a PDF image file with several different bundled programs and settings, but the best speed I managed to get was 11.1 ppm in simplex mode and 4.3 ppm and 8.7 ipm in duplex mode. As a point of comparison, the somewhat more expensive HP Scanjet N6010 claims maximum speeds of 18 ppm and 36 ipm, and delivered 15.6 ppm and 30 ipm on our tests.

Plustek OpticPro A320

Although it's easy to find a letter size scanner for under $100, it's hard to find a tabloid size scanner for less than $1,000 at least it was before the OpticPro A320. This super tabloid (12 by 17 inch) flatbed scanner comes in at only $600 (street). More important, it makes large format scanning far more affordable than it was, particularly for small offices that need to scan large documents.

A big flatbed implies a big scanner, and the A320 measures 5.2 by 24.5 by 16.75 inches (HWD). As the measurements suggest, the Plustek is meant to be placed sideways relative to most scanners, so the top edge of a scan target goes along the right edge of the flatbed. The cover opens toward the back, with seven clearly labeled scan buttons conveniently placed just to the right of the flatbed.

Aside from needing more flat space than most scanners, the A320's installation is standard fare. Plug in the power cord and supplied USB cable, then let Windows install the drivers and software from the program disc. I tested the A320 using Windows XP. Plustek says that the disc also includes drivers and a full set of software for Windows 2000 and Vista. As with any flatbed scanner, you can use the A320 for photos, too, but the software lacks some photo friendly features.

In particular, it can't batch scan (scan multiple photos at once and put each in a separate file), and it doesn't include options for either scratch removal or color restoration for faded photos. All of these are increasingly common features, even on inexpensive flatbed scanners. On the plus side, the claimed 1,600 pixel per inch (ppi) optical resolution is more than enough for a scanner that doesn't scan transparencies (slides and film).

Even if you crop your scans substantially or print them at a larger size than the original, 1,600 ppi leaves plenty of headroom beyond the resolution you'll actually need. The A320 comes with a reasonably easy to use utility for defining the scan setting for each button on the scanner. In addition.

Twain and WIA drivers let you scan from most Windows programs with a scan command, and the software bundle includes a photo editor (NewSoft Presto! Image Folio 4.5), an optical character recognition (OCR) program (Abbyy FineReader Sprint Plus 6.0), and a document management program (NewSoft Presto! PageManager 7.1).

IrisCard Pro 4

The IrisCard Pro 4 hardware is similar in some ways to the IrisCard Pro version 3.5 scanner it replaces, at least to the extent of its resolution and size. The 600 pixel per inch (ppi) optical resolution is more than enough for recognizing text on business cards. At 3 by 6.1 by 1.9 inches (HWD) and 5.6 ounces, it's very portable as well as small enough to fit on a desktop without taking up much space.

Setting up the IrisCard is pretty much standard fare. Like most biz card scanners, it gets power over the supplied USB cable, so all you need do is install the software and connect to a USB port. Once set up, the first time you load the software, it prompts you to calibrate the scanner, using a supplied calibration sheet. (According to IRIS, if you lose the sheet and need to calibrate again, you can use a white #10 envelope in its stead.)

The manual's setup instructions say you need to choose a configure button, and then choose the scanner model. In reality, the button is grayed out and unavailable.

But if you're brave enough to ignore the manual, everything works without problems. As with any scanner, software is much more important than hardware in determining the package's personality, and at least as big a factor in determining how well the package works.

The software (Cardiris Pro 4) stands out for its ease of use and its accuracy, both in recognizing text and in recognizing which text goes in which field name, street address, city, state, phone number, and so forth.

One particularly nice touch is the automatic mode. When this is turned on, the scanner will start scanning when you put a card in the input slot there's no need to give a scan command for each card. It found this particularly convenient for scanning a stack of cards. It let me feed cards one after the other as quickly as if the scanner had an automatic document feeder (ADF) although, of course, I actually had to feed them one at a time.

Once you scan the full stack of cards, you can give a single command to recognize all the cards at once. You can then go through the results on-screen, one by one, comparing an image of each card with the recognized text. Like most business card programs, Cardiris marks newly recognized cards as unverified. You can then view just the unverified cards at your convenience, and mark each card as verified as you go.

Canon imageFORMULA DR-2510C

The DR-2510C model provides color scanning up to 25 pages per minute (ppm) and 50 images per minute (ipm) in duplex.

Ideal for work group environments and distributed scanning applications in legal, health care, government, financial and education markets, the DR-2510C provides fast, high quality duplex scanning in a versatile and space saving design.

Under Canon's new imageFORMULA brand, the DR-2510C scanner also provides reliable document feeding, advanced image processing functions, and customizable Scan To Job buttons to enable faster workflows. Designed for the busy office environment, these two new scanners simplify the scanning process with a range of innovative features.

Epson Perfection V500 Photo

The scanner's long list of impressive features includes a 6,400 pixel per inch (ppi) optical resolution, which is more than enough for scanning 35mm film an LED light source that doesn't need time to warm up when the scanner's been sitting idle and hardware based Digital ICE for digitally removing dust and scratches from film.

Even more important than the individual features is the way they work together, as a well designed, fully integrated whole that makes it easy to take full advantage of each part. Setting up the V500 is typical for a flatbed scanner. You install the software, plug in the scanner, connect a USB cable, and turn it on. In addition to the Epson Twain driver, which you can use directly or call up with almost any program that has a scan command, the bundled software includes two application programs.

Photoshop Elements (my unit came with version 4.0, though Epson insists it ships with version 3) is a fairly sophisticated photo editor that's appropriate for the relatively serious amateur photographer the V500 is aimed at. ABBYY FineReader 6.0 Sprint is a capable optical character recognition (OCR) program appropriate for basic OCR for personal use. It can save recognized text to a format suitable for editing and can save files in search able PDF format for document management.

The V500's front panel includes one touch scan buttons for scanning to a PDF format image file, copying (sending a scan to your printer), email (creating an email message with the scan attached as a document), and calling up the Epson Twain driver to scan and save a file to disk. The driver, complete with Epson's usual three modes, will be immediately familiar to anyone who's used other Epson scanners.

The default mode is the scanner equivalent of a point and shoot mode on a camera, handling virtually all of the settings for you. Switch to Home mode and you can control a few settings, including adjusting brightness after a preview. Switch to Professional mode and you get much more control, with settings for color balance, saturation, and more.

All three modes include options for software based dust removal and for restoring color to faded photographs both of which worked reasonably well on my tests. Home and Professional modes include a backlight correction feature that automatically fixes photos with, for example, a dark face against a bright background. You simply click a check box, instead of having to adjust settings manually.

NeatReceipts Neat Business Cards

NeatReceipts could have taken the business card module from the Scanalizer program as is, combined it with a business card scanner, and sold the result as a perfectly reasonable product that would stand up to the competition. Instead, the company says it enhanced the parsing engine, tweaking it for the specific task of recognizing business cards.

More important, it took the idea of a business card scanner to the next level, by letting you scan directly into two popular contact management programs Act! and Microsoft Outlook. Like other business card packages, Neat Business Cards comes with its own program for managing the contact information from scanned cards. Similarly, it lets you synchronize the data with another contact manager although it's limited to syncing with Outlook and the online Plaxo service.

Unlike other business card packages, Neat Business Cards comes with plug-ins for Outlook (2000 and later) and Act! (version 9 and later), so you can scan cards directly into either program. This won't help if you use another contact manager, such as Goldmine. But if you're one of the legions of people who use Outlook or Act!

Neat Business Cards gives you a simple way to get information off a business card and into the program you already use, without your having to learn an entirely new program or worry about synchronizing data.

The package even bundles Act! 9.0, giving you a full fledged contact manager if you don't already have one.

The hardware side of Neat Business Cards is a 600 pixel per inch color scanner that takes up hardly any more room on your desk than a stack of business cards.

At 1.1 by 4.4 by 2.1 inches (HWD) and just 3.3 ounces, it's small even for a business card scanner. It's also highly portable. You can easily take it with you on trips, scan cards while you still remember why you took each one, and add notes along with the cards. It even comes with a small travel case with room for both the scanner and included USB cable. Setup is standard for a business card scanner.

Install the software and connect to a USB port, with the USB cable providing both a data connection and power for the scanner. It suspect most people will ignore the Neat Business Cards program and use the Outlook or Act! plug ins, which show up as an extra toolbar in both programs. Insert a business card into the scanner's feed slot and choose the scan button in the toolbar.

The plug in will scan the card, recognize the text, and wait for you to make corrections. You can then choose an on screen button to save the information, or save it and scan another card You can also use Neat Business Card software to manage your contact information. The software looks very much like the business card module in Scanalizer, with the screen divided into four panes.

One shows a list of contacts a second shows details for the currently selected contact a third lets you see the front or back of the card for the currently selected contact, or switch to an advanced search screen and the fourth lets you list action items and notes for the currently selected contact.

IrisCard Pro

The hardware side of the IrisCard Pro package is a reasonably portable, 600 ppi color scanner that measures 1.1 by 5.9 by 2.6 inches (HWD) and weighs just 7 ounces. That's big enough to scan anything up to 4.2 inches wide, but small enough to stay out of the way on your desk and portable enough to carry on the road. The portability is particularly useful if you want to scan cards at the end of each day when you're traveling.

That way, you can add notes while you still remember why you took each card. Like most business card scanners, IrisCard Pro has no power cord, getting its power over its USB cable instead. Setting it up the first time is as easy as installing the software and connecting to a USB port. Once the software is installed, setting it up to use when you're traveling is just a matter of plugging in the cable and launching the software.

The heart of any business card scanning package is the software. It is largely responsible for how you go about scanning, as well as how well the package does its main job.

That is parsing business card text into the right fields name, address, phone number, and so on and then recognizing the text. The better it does this, the more time it will save you.

The software, CardIris version 3.5, scores well on making the scanning process reasonably painless. You can scan and recognize each card, then check the accuracy before moving on to the next, if you like.

This is fine for scanning one or two cards at a time. You also have the option of setting the scanner to automatic mode. This will start scanning when you put a card in the input slot without your having to give a scan command for each card. I found that far easier for scanning a stack of cards, since it let me feed card after card just as quickly as if the scanner had an automatic document feeder.

Once you've scanned the full stack, you can then recognize all the cards with a single command. After the software recognizes the text, you can check the results, with the program conveniently showing the original image as well as the recognized text. As with most business card programs, CardIris marks the newly recognized cards as unverified. You can go through the cards at your leisure, only a few at a time if you like, and change each to verified as you go.

Visioneer Strobe XP 220

What makes the XP 220 special among small scanners is the Kofax Virtual ReScan (VRS) module that's integrated into the driver. "Virtual rescan" is a clever way of describing digital enhancement, which can turn a literally unreadable scanned image into an easily readable one. Highlighted text, for example, may show as solid black on a scan. Digital enhancement can find the text.

Having VRS in a $300 scanner is a big deal. Until recently, it was available only for document scanners with prices ranging from relatively expensive to astronomical. Then in January Visioneer announced that it would include an integrated version of VRS in selected drivers, with an upgrade to an integrated version of VRS Professional available for $295. The XP 220 is Visioneer's first portable scanner with VRS included.

The XP 220 isn't the smallest sheet fed scanner you can find. In particular, it's noticeably larger than the Plustek M12 Corporate, the current Editors' Choice in this category. The M12 is roughly the size of a stack of ten one foot rulers and weighs less than a pound. The XP 220 is a bit larger, closer in size to a hoagie (aka a grinder or submarine sandwich, depending on what part of the country you're from) at 2 by 11 by 2.5 inches (HWD), and noticeably heavier, at 1.5 pounds.

The size and weight don't rule out the XP 220 as a portable scanner, but they make it a little less portable than it could be. So does the way that it connects. Most portable scanners, including the M12 Corporate, get all their power over the USB cable. The XP 220 has a combined power cord and USB cable with three connectors that plug into a power outlet, a computer USB port, and the scanner.

The combined cable is less elegant to set up repeatedly with a notebook than a simple USB cable. Worse, the scanner uses a DIN connector, with pins that are much too easy to accidentally bend when you're plugging it in. (I've run into this situation far too often with DIN connectors and recovered from it only by judicious use of needle nose pliers.) Repeatedly disconnecting and reconnecting the cable virtually guarantees that you'll eventually bend a pin and wind up with a non functioning scanner.

Except for the funky cable, setup is standard fare, requiring only that you install the software and connect the hardware. The scanner is small enough to sit between your keyboard and monitor, if you like. The input slot is high enough to let you reach over the keyboard to feed paper easily. You can set the scanner for either a straight through path or a curved path that pushes each page up and in front of the monitor.

A nice touch is that you can set the driver to start a scan automatically when you feed paper into the slot. The software that comes with the XP 220 is a well chosen selection for office use, including ScanSoft PaperPort 11 for document management, ScanSoft OmniPage Pro 14 for optical character recognition, and X1 Enterprise Client 5.6.2 for indexing files for easy retrieval.

Canon DR-1210C

For instance, it lets you choose a type of scan from a descriptive name instead of an arbitrary number. It delivers the extra flourishes despite being one of the least expensive flatbed document scanners available it's truly affordable for a home office, small office, or for use as a personal scanner in a larger office. Most document scanners at any price are strictly sheet fed.

This is because the vast majority of documents that offices need to scan into electronic format consist of stacks of individual sheets of paper. Having a flatbed can be useful, however, if you need to scan books, magazines, or other originals that can't go through a sheet feeder. And small office or personal users are more likely to need to scan those kinds of originals, as well as needing to scan to email or to fax.

Setting up the DR-1210C is simple. Install the software using the automated installation routine, plug in a USB cable and power cord, and let Microsoft Windows recognize the scanner. The software includes OmniPage SE version 4 for optical character recognition Presto BizCard 5 SE for business cards, Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Standard. Canon's CapturePerfect 3.0 scan utility, which can scan and save to an assortment of formats, including search able PDF for example and a combined Twain and ISIS driver, which will let you scan using nearly any Windows software with a scan command.

Not so incidentally, at 6.5 by 18.5 by 15.0 inches (HWD), the DR-1210C has nearly as small a footprint as you could hope for in a flatbed scanner.

It weighs only 13.4 pounds. It's designed to sit in landscape orientation relative to your position when you're facing it, with the front panel on one of the long sides, and the lid hinged so it opens front to back.

The input tray for the 35 page automatic document feeder in the lid folds over and acts as a dust cover when you're not using it.

Canon deserves kudos for how easy it has made scanning from the DR-1210C's front panel. The control software that runs on your computer lets you define up to 50 different types of jobs, with each definition specifying a file type (including image PDF, search able PDF, BMP, TIFF, and JPG) as well as specifying settings in the Twain driver for things like resolution and color mode.

Those 50 definitions are roughly five times as many as you can create with most document scanner software. And that's the least of it. The software also lets you give meaningful names to each of the definitions, with up to 40 characters in each name. When you're ready to scan, you can then scroll through the names on the front panel LCD menu to find the right job type before pressing the scan button.

The standard approach is to assign a number to each definition and leave it to you either to memorize which numbers go with which definitions, or (more likely) to maintain a cheat sheet. Canon also goes one step further and lets you assign any of the definitions presumably the ones you use most often to any of five front panel buttons labeled A, B, C, D, and E.

Press a button, and the text for that definition shows in the LCD, so you can confirm it before hitting the scan button. The DR-1210C offers a maximum optical resolution of 600 pixels per inch, which is typical for document scanners. It's rated at a relatively slow 12 pages per minute. In our tests, scanning our standard 25 page text document using the scanner's default settings of 300 ppi and black and white mode, the DR-1210C was just a touch slower than its claimed speed, at 11.4 ppm for scanning to a PDF image file.

KeyScan KS810

For anyone who has discovered the advantages of scanning paper into electronic form, having a scanner handy is a must. You can use it for everything from receipts to incoming letters to pages you want to send as email attachments. Unfortunately, keeping a scanner to use as needed takes up space and adds one more gadget to clutter up your desk.

One longstanding way to minimize the clutter is with a manual feed, sheet fed scanner small enough to fit between your keyboard and monitor. The Visioneer Strobe XP300 is a typical example of this breed. Since the mid-1990s (if not before), some manufacturers have taken the idea one step further and put the scanner in the keyboard itself. But most people don't even know that keyboard scanners exist or perhaps I should say existed.

When the KS810 showed up, searched the Web for competitors and couldn't find any current models. If there are any, they're well hidden, and KeyScan is effectively taking another run at a good idea that has yet to catch on. The KS810 offers a maximum optical resolution of 600 pixels per inch. This is more than enough for the kinds of office applications it's primarily meant for, and is typical for scanners that sit between the keyboard and monitor.

At 19 by 8 inches, the keyboard's footprint is about the same as that of standard keyboards. The scanner housing raises the height to 2.75 inches along a 12 inch stretch along the rear top right of the keyboard.

When you're scanning, paper normally goes in the slot in the back of the housing, and slides out from under the bottom front of the keyboard. Setup is reasonably easy, but there's room for improvement.

To use the KS810 as a keyboard, you simply connect it by USB cable. To take advantage of the scanner, you then install the scan software, using a fully automated installation routine. So far, so good. But the final installation step says to go to the KeyScan Web site to check for the latest software version. Unfortunately, it doesn't tell you where to go on the Web site. What's more, once you find the right place, there's no way to tell if you have the latest version.

And when tried to download the files, got a message that the download page was not available. It took a call to the company to confirm that it had an older version of the software and to find out where it could download the new one. Then it had to uninstall the first version before it could install the second. KeyScan says it may address this problem simply by removing the suggestion to check for updates.

Instead, it would rely on sending emails to users when new software versions are available. What this all adds up to, however, is a distinct lack of final polish an issue that shows up in the documentation as well. The user manual, for example, is a file that's saved to a folder where you may never think to look for it.

Canon CanoScan 8600F

Quality that blew away the competition in the 8400F's day is no longer as impressive. On top of that, the 8600F costs 20 percent more than the 8400F, which means it has to do better to match it on bang for the buck. The good news is that the 8600F does do better. The 8600F's claimed optical resolution of 4,800 pixels per inch is significantly higher than the 8400F's 3,200 ppi, and the actual ability to resolve detail which is usually limited by a scanner's optics rather than its ppi rating is improved as well.

The difference isn't dramatic, but if you look at images of the same photo scanned by both models side by side, the 8400F's scan shows slightly softer focus and a little less detail. More important, the 8600F scan quality compares well with that of its current competition. Setting up the 8600F is absolutely standard install the software and then plug in the power cord and USB cable.

The bundled software includes both Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 and ArcSoft PhotoStudio 5.5 for photo editing, NewSoft Presto! PageManager 7.15 for document management, and ScanSoft OmniPage SE 4.0 optical character recognition (OCR) software for converting scanned documents to editable text. The installation program also installs Twain and WIA drivers, so the scanner can work with almost any Microsoft Windows program with a scan command.

You can also call up Canon's scan control software to start a scan, or use one of the six scan buttons on the front of the scanner. The button choices include scanning directly to PDF format, your email program, or your printer. All of these options are easy to use, with the Twain driver offering a Simple mode, which handles most things automatically, and an Advanced mode that gives you much more control.

One of the features I've long appreciated in Canon scanners is backlight correction, which lets you easily fix photos which have, for example, a darkened face against a bright background. The option lets you bring out detail in the face simply by turning the backlight correction on, instead of having to experiment with adjusting settings by hand. The 8600F driver offers three levels of correction.

When you change settings, it shows the effect on the preview scan, so you can pick the best choice before scanning. The driver also includes software based options to restore color to faded photos and remove dust and scratches. The color restoration and dust removal worked reasonably well in my tests. But like almost all similar features other than the hardware based (and expensive) Digital ICE, the software didn't do much to remove the scratches on my test photo, and the dust removal also mistook some fine details for dust.

That's not unusual, but it makes the feature a mixed blessing. Otherwise, the 8600F's scan quality for both photographic prints and film was more than acceptable, certainly good enough to print for friends and family as snapshots. Skin tone shading was smoother than on some other inexpensive scanners such as the Epson Perfection V350, and no worse than a match for others, including the HP Scanjet G4050.