ScanSnap S500M - Cross Platform?

[MacVault]

I had the previous ScanSnap model. I loved the thing but just sold it on eBay to help pay for a new MacBook. The day after I sold the ScanSnap Fujitsu released a new model for the Mac, ScanSnap S500M. I might want to get this new ScanSnap but I would like to be able to use it both on OS X and from within Windows XP/Vista running on Parallels. For some reason by default Fujitsu "criples" these scanners so the Mac version will run only on Mac and the PC version will run only on Windows.

Does anyone know any way to hack these or somehow make these scanners run on both platforms???

[MacVault]

Has anyone here tried the new ScanSnap S500M yet? Anyone know of good OCR software for Mac, or is that best left up to a Windows program?

[JoshFink]

I had the previous ScanSnap model. I loved the thing but just sold it on eBay to help pay for a new MacBook. The day after I sold the ScanSnap Fujitsu released a new model for the Mac, ScanSnap S500M. I might want to get this new ScanSnap but I would like to be able to use it both on OS X and from within Windows XP/Vista running on Parallels. For some reason by default Fujitsu "criples" these scanners so the Mac version will run only on Mac and the PC version will run only on Windows.

Does anyone know any way to hack these or somehow make these scanners run on both platforms???

Does anyone know a way to allow this to work on a PC and a Mac?

Thanks

Josh

[alphaod]

Does anyone know any way to hack these or somehow make these scanners run on both platforms???

No you can't; they do not use drivers, but proprietary controllers so there is no way to use on or the other on cross-platforms.

Also you will want the S510M.

Finally I use Acrobat Professional for OCR; the scanner comes with 3 copies of Acrobat Standard included.

[JoshFink]

No you can't; they do not use drivers, but proprietary controllers so there is no way to use on or the other on cross-platforms.

Also you will want the S510M.

Finally I use Acrobat Professional for OCR; the scanner comes with 3 copies of Acrobat Standard included.

Not sure why I would want the S510M when I have the S500M :confused:

I understand that they do not use drivers but access the scanners directly from the software. However, where did you get the info that it's not possible at all. Is this from experience, from their website?

Thanks

Josh

[JoshFink]

Not sure why I would want the S510M when I have the S500M :confused:

I understand that they do not use drivers but access the scanners directly from the software. However, where did you get the info that it's not possible at all. Is this from experience, from their website?

Thanks

Josh

Anyone?

[alphaod]

Not sure why I would want the S510M when I have the S500M :confused:

I understand that they do not use drivers but access the scanners directly from the software. However, where did you get the info that it's not possible at all. Is this from experience, from their website?

Thanks

Josh

No I was refering to MacVault, because I assumed he wanted a new scanner.

Also I have tried the drivers for OS X and it does not work for the S5xx and vice versa. Yes I've checked the cross platform because I've tested both models.

[PLin]

I'm not sure if there's anyway to get the Mac versions of the scanners to work with Windows, but I know of a way to use the PC versions of the Fujitsu scanners on a Mac.

The Japanese drivers don't seem to care if the scanner is a PC model or Mac model, so you have to install the Japanese drivers and then use Pacifist to extract the contents of the US driver and copy over the English string files.

http://scansnap.fujitsu.com/downloads/jp/jscan/driver/data/105-intel/ScanSnap_V21L20.dmg

http://www.fujitsu.com/downloads/COMP/fcpa/scanners/drivers/ScanSnap_V21L11.dmg

Unfortunately, I don't know if this works the other way around. You could try installing the Japanese Windows drivers, but I don't know if everything will be in Japanese or if it's even possible to copy over the English strings.