NeatScan To Office Software -White

The NeatScan is a nice, portable scanner that is easy to setup and use. I also own a flatbed scanner that is over ten years old so I have something to compare this to.This is a single-sheet feed scanner with a maximum width of 8.5 inches. I didn't test the maximum length but it is at least 11 inches. Although it is a compact scanner, keep in mind you need enough room for your document to go in the front and out the back.The scanner was easy to setup and start using. Took about ten minutes to install software, hookup and calibrate it. I did have to calibrate it twice, the first time nothing scanned. Instructions are clear and easy to follow. The installation adds a toolbar to your Microsoft Office products. I don't think you can use it without those products which really narrows the use of this scanner.The unit is small and compact, will probably fit in most laptop bags. Comes with a nice cover to slip the unit into. Very quiet. You can hear it but it is not annoying.There are three scan modes:Image Only which creates an un-editable image or photocopy of the document. This works well as far as a legible copy but was not a 100% copy like my old scanner. It does do color.Text only converts just the text. But it is not 100%. I did find a few mistakes but only 3 on my test copy of a letter. But the text is editable.Full document mode is supposed to scan text and images but it converted some images, like letterhead, into text but did not convert actual pictures or non-text type images on the document that I used. It did match colored text very well. And the text is editable.Photos do not scan well at all. All my tests were too dark and not very sharp. I don't recommend it for scanning photos.What they do market it as is working well with Microsoft Office products. Examples are scanning receipts, business cards, and documents.For receipts, the software comes with Excel templates. When you scan a receipt it puts the date, total, tax and vendor into the spreadsheet. But why? By the time you go through this process you could have typed in the information. It doesn't break out the details. For instance, I scanned a Costco receipt. It put the total information into the spreadsheet. But what good is that? You can get this information online from your bank and just copy paste it in without setting up extra equipment. And it didn't always get this little bit of information. It does put an image copy of the receipt into a separate worksheet of the same workbook. So I suppose that is one advantage.Same with business cards. Is it worth the time and effort to setup the scanner just to get the info off of the card? How long does it take to type in what you need?I can see the NeatScan will probably be great for those who handle documents out of the office like real estate agents, lawyers, salespeople, etc. They could use something like this such as when they want to get a client's signature on a document right away and scanned into their system while they are out in the field.Overall it is a good scanner, not too expensive and has its place. But I rated it 3 stars because I think it is limited in what it can be used for.

First things first; this product requires Microsoft Office software to work; version 2003 or above. The scanner software will not install if you do not have Office.The packaging and product are top-notch quality. Everything is well-organized, and the "Quick Start Guide" actually has enough useful information to get up to speed with this product, instead of a few pictures with arrows.The scanner itself is lightweight, and sturdy. It has a "PDF" and a "SCAN" button, and an LED on indicator. It comes with a calibration sheet, and a dry and wet cleaning sheet. The wet cleaning sheet is used if you accidently scan something gummy or gunky.The install program adds a toolbar to Office applications; each one has specific features depending on the application. For Outlook, if you have a "New Contact" form open, the toolbar will expect that you will be scanning in a business card, which worked generally well. It guessed the company name, person name, title fairly well. The OCR software did not handle "Fancy" fonts very well. An image of the business card is placed in the contact information for easy reference.For Word, it worked pretty well. If you choose Text only, no layout at all, except maybe some spacing, is retained. Choosing Full Document places each block of text in a separate text box, which can make editing the document somewhat tedious. For a directory listing in a table, it imported the text perfectly into a table format.For Excel, it is feast or famine. Scanning in normal mode, you get famine--just an image pasted into the spreadsheet. In "Neat Sheet" (spreadsheet template) mode, it is wonderful for scanning in receipts, bills, etc. It will scan the receipt, and it has a built-in list of dozens of layouts for common items, such as car rentals, utilities, airlines, grocery stores, and much more. It also handles unrecognized receipts quite well, usually picking out the total, tax, date, store, and payment type such as MasterCard or cash. I had to smooth out a particularly wrinkled receipt, but other than that it was very slick. It then places a new row in the spreadsheet for each receipt, with columns for Company, expense category, etc.For all applications, my chief annoyance is that you need to make any option settings before you start the scan; such as Image Only, Text Only, or Full Document, and whether to save as an attachment or imbed in the document.Also, you need to have a Word/Excel/Powerpoint document, either an existing one or a blank one, open, in order to use the "SCAN" button on the scanner.On the plus side, the software installed easily, and doesn't use much memory; less than 100 MB when active. It takes from 15 to 30 seconds to scan a page, and another 15 to 30 seconds to process/OCR the page.The OCR works quite well for standard fonts. I scanned in a page containing 4-up page layouts and the OCR was quite accurate even on the tiny text.The PDF feature works pretty well. The PDF document appears as the scanned image, but you can select the text (including any text in illustrations) and copy/paste the text. The only drawback is there could be typos from OCR errors in the copied text. You can also do searches on the text. You are given the opportunity for PDFs to scan several pages into one document.The storage pouch is very nice, but doesn't have much room in it for the USB cable.