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IRISPEN SCANNER

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Astyl

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 21, 2005
9
0
Does anyone have any experience of using an IRISPEN handheld text-scanner with their Mac? I'm thinking of purchasing one to save time on re-typing large chunks of text from a variety of sources.

I need some reassurance before committing as reviews on the Web are fairly patchy. If anyone has an IRISPEN that is up and running and is happy with what it does – I'd like to hear it about it.

Thanks in advance.
 
R

RichardMacMan

macrumors newbie
Jun 22, 2010
3
0
Hi Astyl,

I don't know if this is still relevant to you 5 years later lol but I have a MacBook Pro and I have recently purchased the IRISPen Express 6. This works very well on my Mac and has come handy as I am a law student, so there is a lot of books that I can just scan into the computer instead of entering it manually. Of course there are a few errors here and there, but most times it is with 100% accuracy. I did a bit of research of course before I bought the Pen, and there are basically three of these pens. The express, executive and the translator. The translator is the only pen that will not work with Mac. So express and executive both work with Mac. I good site I found off google gives a good review of these 3 pens http://www.irispenscanner.com

Regards,

Richard
 
M

macgrl

macrumors 65816
Jul 17, 2008
1,192
5
It may not be helpful for them but your post is helpful for me. Which version of the pen do you have. I am looking at getting one and there seem to be many different versions express, express 6, executive etc. What is the difference and which do you have?

Many thanks:)
 
R

RichardMacMan

macrumors newbie
Jun 22, 2010
3
0
macgrl said:
It may not be helpful for them but your post is helpful for me. Which version of the pen do you have. I am looking at getting one and there seem to be many different versions express, express 6, executive etc. What is the difference and which do you have?

Many thanks:)
Click to expand...

Hey Macgrl,

I have the Express 6. It's the cheapest. Bought it for $120. It does the job, but I wish I put in an extra bit of money and got the executive as it can scan multiple lines of text at once. The executive also scans barcodes, but I have no idea what I would need that for haha. There is also the translator, which scans and translates at the same time.

All the best,

Richard
 
M

macgrl

macrumors 65816
Jul 17, 2008
1,192
5
Thanks for your reply :) When you say that the executive model scans multiple lines does that mean that it just makes it a bit quicker as you don't have to scan line by line? Does the express one only do one line at at time? How many lines does the exec model do? So many questions!! lol I am just looking for something cheap and reliable. I find that the more a product can do the more than can go wrong. Like you I don't think that I will need a barcode scanner! :)
 
R

RichardMacMan

macrumors newbie
Jun 22, 2010
3
0
macgrl said:
Thanks for your reply :) When you say that the executive model scans multiple lines does that mean that it just makes it a bit quicker as you don't have to scan line by line? Does the express one only do one line at at time? How many lines does the exec model do? So many questions!! lol I am just looking for something cheap and reliable. I find that the more a product can do the more than can go wrong. Like you I don't think that I will need a barcode scanner! :)
Click to expand...

Well I have the express 6 and yes it only scans one line at a time, whereas the executive 6 scans multiple ( I just had to confirm that lol ). I haven't had any touble with the express 6, it is very reliable and relatively cheap making it a good investment for me, only because I use it a lot. That's why I wish I got the executive instead. If you are just going to use it now and then, then I recommend getting the express 6, but if you will use it a lot, then the executive is probably for you, just because it has that multiple line feature, making it a lot faster to scan material. But saying that I can still get through a page in a book with the express 6 in less than a few minutes. :)

EDIT: The executive 6 also can scan handwritten material

Cheers,

Richard
 
M

macgrl

macrumors 65816
Jul 17, 2008
1,192
5
Thanks for the advice, I may well look at the executive now and not the express, it is a bit more but I think that I will get the use out of it .:)
 
M

macgrl

macrumors 65816
Jul 17, 2008
1,192
5
Hi all,

Are there any market updates to scanners? Anything new and exciting:)
 
l008com

l008com

macrumors regular
Jan 20, 2004
105
3
So I've used my IRISpen on and off over the past bunch of years. When it's working, it works well. Sometimes it can be really buggy to get working. I was given a free upgrade to version 5 of the software and that made it much more reliable.

HOWEVER it's a PPC app, which means it no longer runs on my up-to-date Mac running Lion. There is no mention on their website, whether or not the newest version of their software is universal or PPC, so no idea if it runs on 10.7.

AND, this is almost my biggest gripe with this pen, the software to run the pen is not free! The pen comes with software, but if you want to upgrade the software, you have to go buy a new pen. You can't freely download the software like you can printer drives or any other software that runs any other pieces of hardware. A true scam in that sense, especially now that you will need to get updated software to run the pen under 10.7. Very annoying. But like I said, when it is working, it works pretty well.
 
J

Jacphil

macrumors newbie
Aug 31, 2011
1
0
l008com said:
So I've used my IRISpen on and off over the past bunch of years. When it's working, it works well. Sometimes it can be really buggy to get working. I was given a free upgrade to version 5 of the software and that made it much more reliable.

HOWEVER it's a PPC app, which means it no longer runs on my up-to-date Mac running Lion. There is no mention on their website, whether or not the newest version of their software is universal or PPC, so no idea if it runs on 10.7.

AND, this is almost my biggest gripe with this pen, the software to run the pen is not free! The pen comes with software, but if you want to upgrade the software, you have to go buy a new pen. You can't freely download the software like you can printer drives or any other software that runs any other pieces of hardware. A true scam in that sense, especially now that you will need to get updated software to run the pen under 10.7. Very annoying. But like I said, when it is working, it works pretty well.
Click to expand...

I have an IrisPen 4.8 since 2007. I just updated to 10.7 and the driver doesn't work anymore. I wrote an Email to IrisPen in Brussel and they just answered me that this product is considered as obsolete and forwarded me to their shop.:mad:
I just answered them that I am shocked of their commercial approach and asked them for commercial gesture, buying a new scanner is absolutely out of question.
So I'm now waiting with no particular hope. I'll give you some further news.
 
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