Fujitsu ScanSnap™ fi-5110EOX2 Pass-Through Scanner

For years now, as my desk and files overflow with reports, documents, statements, receipts, and other papers I can't bring myself to throw out, I've been wanting to scan (and then shred) all of these documents into my computer. But as most people who have had similar ambitions know, most scanners aren't up to that task.

For one thing, they're usually slow (ah, the minutes of gentle buzzing of the motors inching the lamp along the length of a scanner warms my heart!). Another, they generally don't scan on both sides in the same pass. Automatic document feeder options that allow you to scan a pile of paper instead of one at a time are big and expensive. Finally, most of the time, you're stuck with a really big image file that you have to convert to another format to store or e-mail. Blech.

My last attempt to reduce paper resulted in the purchase of a very expensive, (then) top-of-the-line HP Scanjet 8200--which is now only used once-in-a-while for high quality image scanning. And especially so now that I found the answer to my document scanning woes: the Fujitsu ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2.

Overview
The ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2 is a sheet-fed, pass through document scanner. Think of a fax machine...only without the fax intelligence. In addition to handling color or black and white documents from A5 size to legal, the scanner scans both sides of the paper in a single pass. With the included carrier sheet, you can scan small, fragile, or odd-shaped papers (newspaper clippings, photos, etc.) as long as they are flat.

Physically, the unit is a light 6-pounds, and is smaller than most toasters (approximately 11" x 6" x 6"). The sheet feeder tray serves as a dust cover when closed, and the output tray collapses and slides inside the unit when closed. The result is a highly transportable document scanner that takes up less space than a printer.

The unit itself is black with a silver lid (PC version) or Macintosh white for the Apple compatible version.

Installation
After unpacking, you connect the scanner to your computer using the included USB 2.0 cable. There's a software installation CD that includes the ScanSnap Manager software that controls the scanner and Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Standard edition (normally, Acrobat by itself would cost up to 1/3 of the price you will pay for this scanner!). ScanSnap Manager is the proprietary control for the scanner, so while the scanner can automatically send output to any application that can accept JPEG or PDF images, the scanner is not TWAIN compatible, meaning that you cannot scan directly from most applications.

I'm not sure whether you have to use the standard version of Acrobat 7.0, nor am I sure whether you can use another version (such as version 6 or the professional editions) in lieu 7.0 Standard. But if you don't have a copy of Acrobat (a must-have, in my opinion, for business professionals), it's a nice bundled application.

Speaking of bundles, other applications included are a business card manager application (using the scanner to acquire and recognize the information on business cards) and a PDF thumbnail manager to organize your scanned files.

Operation
To scan a pile of documents, you need only open the lid, connect the scanner to your computer, power the unit on, load the documents, and press the big green scan button on the front. Alternatively, you can initiate the scan using the ScanSnap Manager tray icon on your computer. Incidentally, you can change all of the various scanner settings and defaults via Manager and even set up custom profiles for different types of scans you routinely make.

The sheet feeder is designed to hold 50 20-lb. sheets of paper, but I think that's pretty optimistic. Since the unit has a tendency to jam occasionally (see below), I prefer to stack the documents loosely and in chunks of about 15 sheets at a time.

Literally, if you don't tweak the settings, you can finish scanning a stack of documents--either color or black & white (no grayscale however) and one- or two-sided--directly to PDF, all within a few minutes of opening the lid. No flipping pages. No lengthy scanner lamp warmup. No manual editing or file conversion. No tedious adjustment of quality or scanning settings. It's beautiful!

Performance
Speed is a big feature of this scanner, and Fujitsu advertises that this model will scan 15 double-sided pages per minute. While that's only on the fastest speed (at the lowest quality setting), when I use this on the "Better" quality level (one step up), I get a very healthy 6 seconds per page, with the first page taking a few seconds more. I suspect this is because of the auto-detect and auto-sizing features, since the first page scans, there's a few seconds' pause, and then the scanner cranks out the pages almost non-stop.

The USB 2.0 interface quickly transfers the image data to your computer, and the Fujitsu software processes the pages in the background--the scanner does not pause to process each page unlike other scanners. Indeed, it usually takes a few seconds after the last page for the program to finish (it displays a page counter to show you its progress.

When I first set up the scanner, I was dismayed when one of my first scan jobs misfed, dragging two sheets inside before realizing there was a jam. Clearing the jam is very easy: just release a latch at the top, and the front of the unit swings forward to allow easy access to the paper without having to destroy the document to extract it. But still, a misfeed? Oh no!

Not to worry...I've found that most of the jams are caused by crisp, new paper that causes the document feeding mechanism to grab more than one page. Using an old fax machine technique, I've found that slightly crinkling or fanning the leading edge of each page keeps them from jamming. That seems to work well with this scanner, and in most cases, you can't see the wrinkles in the final scanned image (exceptions being glossy paper or scanning at the highest quality).

Even so, jams still occasionally happen, and (using another fax machine trick), I sometimes feed problematic paper in one-by-one. But out of the box, the scanning software does not give you the option to continue a scan once it detects the last page (so you would feed the single page in but the scanner would assume that's all you wanted to scan and move to the save dialog box). Then you'd have to manually combine PDF files in Adobe Acrobat, which is annoying. Fortunately, after some poking around, there is a continuation option that you can enable that will force you to click either a "continue to scan" button or a "finished" button. Why that's not the default is beyond me...

The scan results themselves are very good. Even at the lowest setting ("normal mode" of 150dpi color/300dpi b&w), the results are hard to distinguish from the originals except under close scrutiny. Color accuracy is very good as well. And file sizes when saved as Adobe PDF are quite acceptable (thanks to Adobe's file compression settings). Since I'm using the scanner to archive paper documents, it's possible to get hundreds of pages of high quality scans to fit on a single CD-ROM or keep them tucked away in a small corner of the huge hard drives of today.

While there's a lot of positives about the ScanSnap, there are a few minor problems I've noticed. One of them is the deskew feature that is supposed to automatically straighten the scan. It doesn't work all of the time. That's compounded by the nature of a sheet-fed scanner: sometimes the paper feeds in at a crooked angle, or the paper isn't completely flat when it is scanned. The former results in skewed, jagged lines in place of straight ones in the final result. The latter causes lines and text to be buckled or warped. It doesn't happen that often, and in most cases it doesn't matter. But if it does, you should make sure to carefully examine the output file for these problems.

Another problem is sometimes the auto size detection and blank page skipping doesn't work correctly. The size detection really can't handle odd-shaped documents well, and you're better off manually setting a page size (such as letter size when scanning utility bills). Blank page skipping sometimes flags a page as blank when it's not really. This tends to be the case when the page has a lot of white area.

Conclusion
Despite the minor feature oversights (no greyscale or TWAIN?) and occasional jamming, this is a great little scanner for people looking to capture a lot of paper documents into electronic format. It's hard to beat given its strong suits: lightning fast duplex scanning, automatic capture to the de facto standard of Adobe PDF, inclusion of a full version of Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Standard edition, and a low price tag.

Seriously, if you have ever dreamed of getting some of that mountain of paper off your desk, thought about cleaning out your file drawers, or wished you could save your receipts and bank statements for eternity, the ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2 will be your new best friend too.