- Scan directly to the cloud
- Scan documents up to 8.5"x14" including business, rigid I.D. and credit cards
- Travel friendly, weighs under 1 lb, Windows and Mac compatible
- USB powered, doc management suite included
- Search and edit scanned text, create PDFs and PDF/A documents
First things first: This is not a portable "wand" scanner, i.e. a scanner you can wave/roll over things like books or whatever, and store images for use later.
Instead, this is a slot loaded document scanner. It scans documents through a thin slot. The documents have to be flat, but can be somewhat rigid. The maximum width is 8.5", and the maximum supported length is 14".
Basically, this scanner can scan standard and legal sized pieces of paper, and paper sheets smaller than that.
It CANNOT scan books or any other document that won't fit in that slot. There are portable scanners that can do that, and they look something like this. So it's good to get that out of the way.
In addition, this scanner is NOT self powered, and it does NOT have onboard memory. You MUST plug this scanner into a PC/laptop (Windows and Mac both supported with the included install CDs). So this is hardly a solution you'll stick in your back pocket or your purse.
OK, so much for the limitations. How is this at what it does? The answer: Very good. In my tests, I tried single sheets of 8.5x11 paper, 2 sheets at once (double thickness), sheets that were somewhat crumpled, a business card, a birthday card, and a thin round drink coaster. The scanner handled all of them without problem (though the drink coaster had to be supported until it started to go through the scanner). All documents came out the way they went in, with no mis-handling, and no added wrinkles in the documents due to the scanner. I found the text scanning quality to be excellent and completely sufficient for standard optical character recognition using the included Abbyy Finereader 9.0 Sprint software (for Windows).
The resolution of the scanned document can be varied up to 600dpi, which is more than sufficient for both OCR and for scanning full color images for repurposing. The image can be scanned to .jpg, .tiff, .bmp, or .pdf.
In terms of color documents: The quality was very good, and I was surprised at the lack of moire effects in the output images. I found the colors to be good, vibrant, and quite deep, but sometimes slightly off, especially in the region of purples and blues. Skintones were close to dead on.
By default, the software suit installs so that images are scanned at a lower resolution to a .pdf file by default. But these defaults are easily changable through an options panel.
Scanning time was not bad, taking about 45 seconds to do a full color 600dpi scan of an 8.5x11 document.
The software suite that is included is sufficient: A couple of Epson scanning programs (including one that auto activates when you press the scan button on the physical scanner), a limited version of the excellent (in its full form) Abbyy Finereader (9.0 Spirit) OCR program, and a business card reader (NewSoft Presto! BizCard). (Abbyy is replaced by NewSoft Page Manager if you are installing on a Mac). The Abbyy program should be more than sufficient for OCR of standard text documents. It is probably too limited if your intent is to take complex layout originals and reproduce the entirety of layout in your captured document. But for capturing blocks of text or numbers, it's more than adequate.
The user's guide is online--not terrible, but annoying.
There are hooks in the scan capture program that allow you to direct your scans to cloud locations like Google Documents and Evernote, as well as to standard destinations on your local hard drive.
Overall, this is a nice tool, although the slot loaded nature of it limits who this will be useful for. The scan quality is good, and it's reasonably fast. This will not replace the value of a good flat bed scanner, and I found that while the color images it scanned were surprisingly good and deep looking, the colors did tend to be somewhat off in the purple/blue end of the spectrum.
If you're a road warrior who needs to scan documents, I can't imagine you'll do better than this. If you're looking for something for the office, on the other hand, and can afford the bigger footprint of a flat bed scanner, one of Epson's flat bed scanners in the similar price range offers more flexibility and quality that's at least as good.
The package includes the scanner, a usb cable, software install CDs, a calibration card, a couple of cleaning sheets, and an inexpensive bag/case for the scanner.
Buy Epson B11B206201 WorkForce DS-30 Portable Document Scanner Now
There's a lot to like in this compact little Epson WorkForce DS-30 Portable Color Document Scanner, and it's not just its small size. But although my first impressions were that it was a solid workhorse in a small package, it didn't hold up with the test of time, and became an exercise in frustration, putting it simply
Simple points first...
Pros:
+ Compact and lightweight, yet a very solid feel overall
+ Real 600 dpi resolution; nice image quality
+ Scans 8½ x 11 and legal size documents and even business cards & receipts
+ Excellent auto size detection; handles business cards with ease
+ Light weight; just over ½ pound
+ Scans directly to the cloud; no problem with Google Documents
+ Good text enhancement; does OCR quite well
+ USB-powered; no batteries or power cord needed
Cons:
Software is very sketchy; sometimes just doesn't work
USB issues; sometimes connects, other times it doesn't
First impressions:
Right out of the box it was easy to see that this Epson WorkForce DS-30 scanner is a tight little product. It's well packaged, and inside is the scanner itself, a USB cable with a Velcro strap, a simple carry bag with a drawstring closure, two installation CDs (1 PC and 1 Mac), some calibration and cleaning sheets and a setup guide. That guide stated that it was important to not install the USB cable until the software was installed, and I did that. Inserting the CD and following the directions was an easy process.
Regarding the CDs, one is for Windows 7, Vista and XP variants; the other is for Mac OS X 10.5.6, 10.6x and 10.7x. It's also advisable to check online for any software updates are available from Epson. Though I will use this primarily with a MacBook Pro, I installed it on a Windows 7 notebook as I've upgraded the OS on the Mac.
In Use:
On the PC, a 'WorkForce DS-30 User's Guide' shows up after the installation. I followed the online guide and ran the calibration sheet, and all was smooth and painless. In operation I tried scanning first a few 8½ x 11 printed documents and a then couple that were 'chicken-scratched' notes from a legal size worksheet with handwritten notes, and each worked smoothly as expected. I tried a few business cards and then a couple of receipts. The receipts were flimsy, so care should be exercised, the same thing that I found with my older NeatReceipts Mobile Scanner that has been in use for almost three years.
There was no problem with scanning documents directly to the cloud once the online directions were followed, and I ran a few of them to Google Documents. The auto size detection worked properly, and the OCR text enhancement was good enough that I could easily create a few PDF files with ease, when the software wasn't acting up. It handles color reasonably, though I'll be tweaking some of the images that was to be expected. This diminutive scanner is decent for general home office use when using it on the Windows 7 PC, and it takes up just a small amount of desk space. It does a better job than my older HP flatbed scanner, but my older NeatReceipts Mobile Scanner does a better job overall, putting it simply.
This Epson WorkForce DS-30 Portable Color Document Scanner does black & white, color, OCR, and does it in a small, solid and lightweight package. It does what I need and does it well when it doesn't have USB or software issues on the Windows 7 PC. But when I ran it on the Mac (OS X 10.8.x), the USB issues really showed up. It works OK on the PC about 75-80% of the time, but reboot your computer first. On the Mac I've gone back to using the NeatReceipts Mobile Scanner.
Your results may vary.
4/19/2012
Read Best Reviews of Epson B11B206201 WorkForce DS-30 Portable Document Scanner Here
Like many on-the-road business people I always travel with my "office in a bag." My laptop computer, iPad, Canon portable i90 printer, etc., etc. When I received an opportunity to get this product I had to stop and think "Do I really need one more thing to lug through airports, taxis and hotel lobbies? The answer is, yes, I really do.
When I first started to carry a small printer on my trip I was very surprised at how often I used it and how convenient it was. Boarding passes, emails, product spec sheets, maps, all could now be printed out anytime and anywhere that I wanted. Now that I have my portable scanner my experience has been almost the same. I almost can't imagine being without one now.
I work in a competitive industry and my home office expects those of us on the field to be their eyes and ears. Now, if I see a brochure for a new product from a competitor I can scan it, sheet by sheet, and send it to the home office the same day that I found it.
The software could be better as it took a long time to load, but once that was done it was fairly easy to figure out. I like to save scanned documents as JPEGS since it is easy to doctor them if I need to. The quality of the scans are very good, not stellar, but very good. The unit itself is so small that I hardly notice that I have it. All in all I am very pleased with this item and recommend it often to my co-workers and customers.
Want Epson B11B206201 WorkForce DS-30 Portable Document Scanner Discount?
This is a good basic bus-powered (no power brick) sheet-fed scanner suitable for anyone who needs to scan documents away from their office or home.
It is compatible with the scanner driver built into Mac OS since the later versions of Snow Leopard (10.6). You can do basic scans and create PDF's without installing the Epson software that comes with the scanner (plug the scanner into to a USB port on your Mac, open the Preview application, choose Import From Scanner on the File menu, the Epson DS-30 should be on the pop-out list).
If you use the installation disc that come with the DS-30 it installs:
Epson Scan Scanning software that gives you a lot more control over your scans than the scanner software built into OSX.
Presto! PageManager Standard document management software that, among other things, lets you split or merge PDF documents.
Presto! BizCard 5 dedicated software for scanning and parsing the information on business cards.
ABBYY Fine readerOptical Character Recognition (OCR) software used to convert scanned documents into editable text.
The DS-30 physically resembles the NeatReceipts scanner. I tried the DS-30 with the Neat software. It worked one time out of several attempts; in the other cases, the software did not recognize the scanner. It is somewhat faster than my four-year old Neat scanner on ordinary scanning tasks.
I installed all of the software and verified that it all worked with Mac OS 10.7 Lion. I did use the ABBYY OCR software a few times, enough to conclude that you will get decent results scanning reasonably legible documents at higher resolutions (no surprise there). You end up editing virtually any document scanned with consumer scanners and software. The ability of the software to correctly read a business letter increased dramatically going from 200 to 400 dpi, reducing the number or errors from two or three dozen to five or fewer.
The only software I spent a significant amount of time using was Presto! BizCard. I have a box with a couple of hundred business cards I've received over the past few years, so I picked out about 50 to try with the software. I tried to find as many design variations as possible. I've included more information about that experience below.
I scanned over 50 business cards and about two dozen other documents with the DS-30 and found the results to always be acceptable for a document scanner.
The Epson WorkForce DS-30 Portable Document Scanner is a good choice for those who travel and need a decent basic scanner for gathering documents instead of lugging them around until you get back to your home base. It's also worth considering for a home office or dorm situation where space is extremely limited and you have a need for a basic scanner.
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Scanning Business Cards
This is slightly off-topic, but I think worth passing along.
BizCard was quite adept at identifying information and putting it in the correct data field. It also saves an image of the card so you can edit the data without having to keep the card. Looking at the results, there are some clear lessons to be learned about designing business cards in an age when a lot of people will just scan them and toss them :
Never, ever, set type on a diagonal. It did not matter if the card had a horizontal or vertical orientation, but any type on a diagonal was ignored.
If your company uses a logotype that distorts or joins letters, spell out the company name elsewhere, possibly as part of the physical address.
Group the elements logically: name, job title, & department; street address, city, state, postal code, & country; email address & web site url; phone numbers. Put each component on a separate line. The software understood most of the common words for differentiating phone numbers (Office, Mobile, Cell, Fax, etc.) and parsed the numbers accordingly.
-Avoid using dashes, bullets, or small logos in or near any typesetting; it may try to interpret them as part of the text if there is too little space between the object and words or numbers (hyphens within phone number are OK).
-Kern carefully, if at all. While kerning (removing space between individual letters) can produce results more pleasing to the human eye, to the scanning software it creates letter pairs that may not read correctly.
Don't spell out your phone number with letters; it will be ignored.
You can leave off "http://," but if you leave off "www," your web site url will be ignored.
-Colored objects and even photos are OK in the background as long as there is sufficient contrast between the background and the type.
-Surprisingly, the most common problems involved names and company names. For these critical items, use legible typefaces that are not significantly out of proportion to the other information on the card. Avoid drop caps, heavy (extra bold) fonts, and the use of any kind of symbol on the same line.
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I bought this scanner from amazon deals. It works what I wanted it to do. I usually scan few documents and converted it to pdf format to send thru email. Highly recommended.
