Same here. I scan them all and the original goes in the trash and I have never had a problem. The IRS even specifically says you can use digital copies of receipts.
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Considering a ScanSnap IX500
- Thread starter richard13
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Same here. I scan them all and the original goes in the trash and I have never had a problem. The IRS even specifically says you can use digital copies of receipts.
I needed one and didn't have it. We decided to sell my wife's iPod and wiped it back to factory settings. It somehow got attached to someone else's back to my Mac ID. They wouldn't reset it without a receipt.
You are saying Apple would not accept a scanned (digital) version of a receipt? That is odd because the last Apple products I bought I did not even get a hard copy of a receipt at all, only the emailed digital copy.
Depends on the merchant. My wife had a problem returning something at Walgreens (drug store) because she didn't have the original receipt but one printed from the scanned one. It does say on the original receipt that you need it for returns. The manager OKed it but said not to do it again!
They would take a scanned copy but I didn't have one for that iPod. Had to call the store where we bought it. We were traveling when it was purchased so it was a pain to get. The store we bought it from wouldn't mail it to us and said they couldn't email it. They said i could get it at any Apple store but the nearest to me is 2+ hours away. Fortunately my son lives about 15 minutes from an apple store and he got it for us.
I think the original receipt was emailed to my wife and she has way too much email and lost it somewhere along the line.
100% of my incoming email automatically has a copy sent to an "archive" gmail account. This provides the following:
- I can log into my gmail archive account and quickly search for any email ever received or sent.
- It helps me achieve a "zero inbox" lifestyle... where I can ruthlessly delete email upon receipt, because I know that I can always search and find it in a few milliseconds
- It gives Goggle even better access to every aspect of my personal life
2 out of 3 isn't bad.
/Jim
Hey guys! I got my ix500 a couple days ago and I just got around to setting it up. I have some more questions if you wouldn't mind helping...
First thing off the bat is I notice that there are discs that come with this scanner. I found the setup sheet with the address for the software to download but I don't see an online version of Adobe Acrobat XI Standard. The disc says it's for Windows. Is there some Mac version I can download somewhere? Do I even care about this?
Another thing has to do with workflow process. By default the scanner will put all documents in a scan batch in a single PDF. I see there's an option to change this behavior to be per page or per pages. In my mind I'm thinking that unless the documents are related I would prefer that they be separate files. For example, a paper file with related docs could be scanned in the same file but receipts would be separate files. Does this make sense? How are you using yours? How do you account for a mix of one-sided and two-sided receipts?
Also, are these pdfs searchable or do I have to do something to make them so?
First thing off the bat is I notice that there are discs that come with this scanner. I found the setup sheet with the address for the software to download but I don't see an online version of Adobe Acrobat XI Standard. The disc says it's for Windows. Is there some Mac version I can download somewhere? Do I even care about this?
Another thing has to do with workflow process. By default the scanner will put all documents in a scan batch in a single PDF. I see there's an option to change this behavior to be per page or per pages. In my mind I'm thinking that unless the documents are related I would prefer that they be separate files. For example, a paper file with related docs could be scanned in the same file but receipts would be separate files. Does this make sense? How are you using yours? How do you account for a mix of one-sided and two-sided receipts?
Also, are these pdfs searchable or do I have to do something to make them so?
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You need to set up separate profiles for different types of job as per the Unofficial manual I linked earlier. Different profiles instantly selectable from the dock icon as screenshot.
PDFs will be searchable. (can't remember now if you have to tick something)
EDIT if you are using a double sided profile on a single sided document you can set it so that it ignores blank sheets...so you can use a double sided setting for single sided documents without problem.
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Thanks Mike! Yes, I saw something about profiles but couldn't figure out how to use them. Apparently you need to uncheck the "Use Quick Menu" in the ScanSnap Management software. After today with constantly switching back and forth with the settings I'll be happy once I get that setup.
I also found the Convert to Searchable PDF check box in the File option tab but after writing my post I decided to leave this alone for now. I don't really need my receipts to be searchable (just yet). I also found the Searchable PDF Converter utility so that I can do this later on if I want to.
Setup documentation was pretty thorough but I think the lack of User documentation took me aback a bit. I guess Fujitsu thinks their product is so easy you don't need documentation but it wouldn't have hurt if they included something. It took me a few trial scan jobs to realize I should stack my documents face down. This is odd because their ads show documents facing up.
No, and you shouldn't care. Preview will do most of what you might want Adobe Acrobat for. If Preview doesn't do the job, buy PDF Pen Pro. I've got that and Adobe Acrobat and PDF Pen is superior to use and has far less bloat.
Also, I'd recommend OCRing everything. It's fast and you can never tell when you might want to do a search of contents.
The comment about Preview is right -- it will handle most everything.
That said, I wanted to be able to use the full Adobe suite. My rMBP runs Win 8.1 under Parallels for some other software needs, so I could install the full Windows version of the Adobe application.
However, unless you need Windows for some other purpose it would not be worth the cost of Parallels and the cost of Win 8 just to run Adobe XI.
Thanks talmy. I'll consider doing OCR. Do you know what the ramifications of doing so are? I mean, why wouldn't this be turned on by default unless there's some issue with it. Does it make the files bigger or slow down Spotlight or something?
Yea, I already have Parallels so I can run the Windows version of Quicken. I guess I could use it for Acrobat if I wanted to. Of course, then I'd have to go get an external SuperDrive to read the DVD-ROM. Thanks for the suggestion.
I OCR everything as well. The point of paperless is that you can find things easily. If you don't OCR then you are relying on remembering which documents might contain the info you are looking for. Not aware of any penalty or downside.
Also never missed Adobe Acrobat.
Also never missed Adobe Acrobat.
Does doing OCR make the PDF larger than a normal scan? I currently scan all my receipts and don't OCR them, but have been considering it.
Most of the one page receipts I have scanned at 150DPI in Image Capture are between 1-2MB PDFs.
Turning on OCR does take more time (possibly doubles the scan time, at least on my 4.5 year old iMac) but scanning is so fast I don't care. The files are also bigger, but disk space is cheap.
The advantage is you can do a Spotlight search based on the content. That makes it worth it for me. I don't notice Spotlight slowing down because of this.
Not done a back to back, but 1-1.5Mb is huge for a simple receipt. My OCR'd receipts are all under 500K. I have ScanSnap settings on auto and compression 3.
OCR previously-scanned PDF files?
I have used my Scansnap 1500M (great scanner!) with an iMac for about 2 years, saving receipts and other documents to various sub-folders in my documents folder.
So far I have not used OCR, but based on above comments I may want to consider this. Is there any way to run the previously-scanned PDF files through a program so that the contents can now be indexed and searched, just as if they were OCR'd originally?
I have used my Scansnap 1500M (great scanner!) with an iMac for about 2 years, saving receipts and other documents to various sub-folders in my documents folder.
So far I have not used OCR, but based on above comments I may want to consider this. Is there any way to run the previously-scanned PDF files through a program so that the contents can now be indexed and searched, just as if they were OCR'd originally?
I never have problems with receipts. I often have receipts emailed. Historically I've scanned "important" ones using my Brother MFC network printer/fax/scanner. More recently I don't bother much with receipts as many places track purchases by card used to buy them.
BTW, even the IRS accepts scanned receipts so there really is no need to hang on to bits of paper once they are scanned (and backed up of course).
One of these days, when I get around to it, I plan to get a more robust network scanner such as the ix500 but for now my dusty old MFC 7440 is working adequately.
Book Scanning?
You have all convinced me of all the great reasons to buy a Scansnap and why this scanner is probably going to be more useful overall to my home office. I primarily need to scan loose leaf sheets, often double sided, so the Scansnap sounds great! But my husband needs to scan books, and I haven't been able to find a Mac-compatible automatic document feeder/flatbed that seems to perform as well as Scansnap and other similar automatic document scanners. The only solutions I can think of are (1) buying an ok scanner like the Epson Workforce GT-1500 (reviews seem mediocre) and (2) buying two scanners (auto-doc feeder and a flatbed), which is the least attractive options. Do you by any chance have any other better solutions?
I saw that someone mentioned using a camera or smartphone to take pictures of book pages, is that the only third option? How do you then put the photos together to create a PDF? Is it a cumbersome process?
Many thanks if you have any other solutions.
You have all convinced me of all the great reasons to buy a Scansnap and why this scanner is probably going to be more useful overall to my home office. I primarily need to scan loose leaf sheets, often double sided, so the Scansnap sounds great! But my husband needs to scan books, and I haven't been able to find a Mac-compatible automatic document feeder/flatbed that seems to perform as well as Scansnap and other similar automatic document scanners. The only solutions I can think of are (1) buying an ok scanner like the Epson Workforce GT-1500 (reviews seem mediocre) and (2) buying two scanners (auto-doc feeder and a flatbed), which is the least attractive options. Do you by any chance have any other better solutions?
I saw that someone mentioned using a camera or smartphone to take pictures of book pages, is that the only third option? How do you then put the photos together to create a PDF? Is it a cumbersome process?
Many thanks if you have any other solutions.
If you don't mind destroying the book, you can cut off the binding then scan the separated sheets. Apparently copy centers have the tools to cut out the pages.
Chopping up a book to scan it is unnecessary and quite often not an option. No need to destroy the books just to digitize them. There is quite a community of book scanning folks out there that have come up with a variety of solutions to get your books into PDF format. Depending on how handy you are and how many / what kind of books you have to scan, you can DIY a very respectable solution. If it is only a few books, there are services that will do the scanning for you with similar devices, that don't require hacking up the texts. I kind of wish I had a need to scan some books so I could rig up my own DIY device. Here is a great place to start: http://www.diybookscanner.org/
I'm late to this thread, but I have the older Fujitsu fi-5110EOX2--a PC scanner that I'm using on the Mac with the IX500 software. The Fujitsu is without question the best scanner I've ever owned. And the IX500 is faster, feeds better, and has wireless besides.
When the fi-5110EOX2 dies, I'll buy whatever Fujitsu's newest model is. Heck, I'm thinking about buying the IX500 just because it's shiny.
The IX500 software (like the EOXM software before it) comes with a built-in version of the ABBYY OCR software. ABBYY is... ok. For example, you can't use it to reliably OCR a spreadsheet without checking every number. However, for the purposes of text search, ABBYY is just fine. If anyone has suggestions for higher-quality OCR software, I'd appreciate it.
With the built-in OCR features enabled in ScanSnap Manager, Preview, and Finder, I haven't really found the need for better document management software.
When the fi-5110EOX2 dies, I'll buy whatever Fujitsu's newest model is. Heck, I'm thinking about buying the IX500 just because it's shiny.
The IX500 software (like the EOXM software before it) comes with a built-in version of the ABBYY OCR software. ABBYY is... ok. For example, you can't use it to reliably OCR a spreadsheet without checking every number. However, for the purposes of text search, ABBYY is just fine. If anyone has suggestions for higher-quality OCR software, I'd appreciate it.
With the built-in OCR features enabled in ScanSnap Manager, Preview, and Finder, I haven't really found the need for better document management software.
Thanks for your responses. On scanning books, it's not practical to send the books out to a service nor can we split the binding. The books will need to be scanned somewhat regularly (husband is a university professor) so we need a more permanent solution.
I'm thinking the iphone scanning app solution might be the best option (to supplement our other scanning needs which will be met by the ScanSnap ix500).
I'm thinking the iphone scanning app solution might be the best option (to supplement our other scanning needs which will be met by the ScanSnap ix500).