Fujitsu ScanSnap SV600 A3 Overhead Scanner

Performance:Arrived relatively fast. Works as advertised. Surprised that the label is now Ricoh and no longer Fujitsu. Searched the internet and found out that the change in name is due to a rebranding from Fujitsu to Ricoh

Closest Thing to a Miracle

I purchased the SV600 because I am a new professor and I need to make PowerPoints really fast by cutting a pasting text from books. The OCR (Optical Character Recognition) just had to work. I compared the price and features to the similar models and found it to be half the price. It was worth a try since I had 30 days to return it at BandH. Thirty days passed and I had not opened the box. I took it out when I was desparate to scan a book only hours before a lecture. The instructions are not very good, but you can manage. Took 60 minutes to understand how it works, but once it started working, I could not live without it. The OCR feature works perfectly for me. Can scan a 300 page book in 20 minutes. Converting to searchable text takes less than 5 minutes. If you're ... MoreI purchased the SV600 because I am a new professor and I need to make PowerPoints really fast by cutting a pasting text from books. The OCR (Optical Character Recognition) just had to work. I compared the price and features to the similar models and found it to be half the price. It was worth a try since I had 30 days to return it at BandH. Thirty days passed and I had not opened the box. I took it out when I was desparate to scan a book only hours before a lecture. The instructions are not very good, but you can manage. Took 60 minutes to understand how it works, but once it started working, I could not live without it. The OCR feature works perfectly for me. Can scan a 300 page book in 20 minutes. Converting to searchable text takes less than 5 minutes. If you're and academic and doing new preps, this is a most have item.

Easy to use, great value for the cost

This scanner is extremely simple to use. I made sure to buy one with an English instruction manual, but you can get one from Japan and download the manual in English from ScanSnap yourself. You just have to make sure you download the drivers before hooking it up to your computer, then it's remarkably quick and easy to use. I am scanning textbooks I own to allow for quick reference and integrating the information into OneNote. This also is saving my back this semester as I only need to carry my laptop to class instead of the notebook/textbooks. This makes it simple as I don't have to re-pack my bag daily, and I never forget a book for class. The scanning process is very user-friendly. You can set it to scan every couple of seconds, or to acknowledge page turns and it ... MoreThis scanner is extremely simple to use. I made sure to buy one with an English instruction manual, but you can get one from Japan and download the manual in English from ScanSnap yourself. You just have to make sure you download the drivers before hooking it up to your computer, then it's remarkably quick and easy to use. I am scanning textbooks I own to allow for quick reference and integrating the information into OneNote. This also is saving my back this semester as I only need to carry my laptop to class instead of the notebook/textbooks. This makes it simple as I don't have to re-pack my bag daily, and I never forget a book for class. The scanning process is very user-friendly. You can set it to scan every couple of seconds, or to acknowledge page turns and it will continuously scan until you tell the program you're done. On average it takes about 3 seconds per page, and I can completely scan a 400 page textbook in around an hour. The scan quality is adjustable, and I chose lower quality for smaller size. As you're scanning, you can see if the computer recognized the correct outline of your book so you won't have to spend as much time adjusting the image after the fact. The BEST thing about this scanner is that it allows you to adjust the page outlinesand easily remove your fingers that were holding down the book pages. The page outline adjustment is so that the program corrects the text so it appears as though it's a straight page, and not curved like it was scanned in a book. The scan isn't perfect by any definition, but it's easy to run OCR and read all the text you scanned, and copy it into notecards you make to study with. I thought it would be a better-looking scan if I held the book down with a sheet of clear plexi, but the program actually recognized the edges of the books better when I was holding the pages down with my finger instead of no fingers in the shot. It surprised me, but it's a lot less work and a faster scan this way, so the plexi will have to be put to other uses. Compared to scanners that cost 5-10x more, it's obviously going to fall short, but for those operating on a budget who don't want to break the spine of books in order to memorialize the information, this scanner is worth every penny. I've used handheld scanners that were ok, but the ease of use and the quickness of this scanner makes it a hands-down winner in my book. I only wish I'd purchased it sooner.

Great Scanner

Great quality and works perfectly. Versatile scanner. I use mine specifically for my eBay business (scanning sports cards, comics and other collectibles that fit in the scan area). If you’re curious of this scanner watch reviews on YouTube. Those reviews were helpful during my consideration of this scanner. A

I like the Fujitsu Overhead scanner for large magazines and book scans. The scanner works well fo...

I like the Fujitsu Overhead scanner for large magazines and book scans. The scanner works well for quick scans but needs improvements in the software as others have suggested. The quality of the scans varies and requires some manipulation of the pages to get quality scans. I use a plexiglas sheet to hold down book pages when clarity is important. Anyone who uses this Overhead scanner will need Adobe Acrobat DC to make corrections. I believe Adobe Acrobat DC now comes with the Fujitsu Overhead scanner for one year of use; thereafter it cost $180.00 per year. Using your fingertips to hold down the pages of a book while scanning is not a good method because the software included with the scanner can only remove fingertips from scans one page at a time.

Mechanics are good, software is horrible

Disappointed is a mild word. It loooks great, but when you TRY to load the softeare (MAC Mojave) you get threee quirky, demi independant main programs (Hpme, Manage, Organizer) that don't seem to talk to eaxh other. FOUR re-so;s on the installation... and it is still 1980's vontage functionality. Fujitsu REALLY cut the corners on SnapScan What a waste of a n otherwise fine scanner.Laod ScanSnap from the cd, nit the website, and the go for the update.WHY it isd not just ONE program (like, say, my 10 year old PS-CS6) and have it WORK RIGHT OUT OF TYHE BOX.I tried to get a CZUR forom another supplier, but B&H came through with their excelleny delivery service on this. Honestly, based on software I shouls have waited the extra month.

Nearly great and worth its pri

It does its job of scanning quite well at 300 dpi and color is faithful. The finished PDF file is cropped well and the steps of eliminating fingers is easy once you get accustomed to it. The ocr program works well too. Too bad it doesn't fold a bit better for traveling to a library or archive. Also, the added feet are frivilous and too light in weight to even use as paper weights. The instructions are horrid. Set up is easy and intuitive. Learning the software is trial and error, but not too much, as the instructions are way behind the current machine version. I'm on a Mac so maybe the control panel is different and like the instructions when on a PC. Do the scan but don't close the program as you must edit and complete the editing as there is no closing and ... MoreIt does its job of scanning quite well at 300 dpi and color is faithful. The finished PDF file is cropped well and the steps of eliminating fingers is easy once you get accustomed to it. The ocr program works well too. Too bad it doesn't fold a bit better for traveling to a library or archive. Also, the added feet are frivilous and too light in weight to even use as paper weights. The instructions are horrid. Set up is easy and intuitive. Learning the software is trial and error, but not too much, as the instructions are way behind the current machine version. I'm on a Mac so maybe the control panel is different and like the instructions when on a PC. Do the scan but don't close the program as you must edit and complete the editing as there is no closing and re-opening to complete that function. The OCR conversion can be done later, however. I'd give this 4.5 stars if possible--better instructions and better software and it'd be near perfect. Also, it operates quickly and quietly.

Plus: good resolution, easy to set up and use, batch...

Plus: good resolution, easy to set up and use, batch OCR, nice correction of distortion and thumb removal tool when doing fewer books Could use improvement: Batch correction, straight cropping, batch thumb removal We have been very happy with the performance of our ScanSnap SV600. We purchased it to scan laboratory notebooks for archival purposes. While the distortion correction process is relatively good, it's too time-consuming to use it when we're scanning hundreds of books. It would be helpful if the correction could be done in a batch mode. However, the primary purpose of this scanning is to create an electronic file that contains both text and high-resolution figures to preserve and back up the data in the notebooks, and the scanner works very well for this. ... MorePlus: good resolution, easy to set up and use, batch OCR, nice correction of distortion and thumb removal tool when doing fewer books Could use improvement: Batch correction, straight cropping, batch thumb removal We have been very happy with the performance of our ScanSnap SV600. We purchased it to scan laboratory notebooks for archival purposes. While the distortion correction process is relatively good, it's too time-consuming to use it when we're scanning hundreds of books. It would be helpful if the correction could be done in a batch mode. However, the primary purpose of this scanning is to create an electronic file that contains both text and high-resolution figures to preserve and back up the data in the notebooks, and the scanner works very well for this. We were able to scan over 400 notebooks at a fraction of what it would have cost to send them out for that service, with better results. The batch mode for the OCR is very helpful, too, as you can scan a number of books, then set it up to run OCR on all of them at once. For lower throughput jobs, the book distortion correction and thumb removal tools are quite handy. It would be helpful to be able to simply crop the images, preferable in a batch mode, without the program automatically trying to ""correct"" book distortion, which can introduce distortion as it tries to identify the page edges. Perhaps a toggle to enable/disable the automatic page edge prediction. For some larger books, we had to add some height to the scanner (sat it on a catalog) do this. Also the stabilizing clips are cludgy, and we didn't use them. Perhaps a better fix to improve stability, like extendable tabs that could go under the scanning area.

Scanning results met my expectations and needs

The scanner generally does the things it says it will do. The image quality is not the same as a higher resolution flatbed scanner would be, but the results and very acceptable. Images scanned at an A3 size can be enlarged with very good results. I was scanning pages of 4x6 and 3x5 photos in a 50-year-old fraternity scrapbook for posterity with good results. Photos on pages could be enlarged from the original PDF with good clarity. Individual photos can be isolated, extracted, and enlarged from pages with results.

[Rewarded Review] Surprisingly Good Quality

I’ve used this scanner for books, documents, drawings, and receipts. Some reviews stated that it is not great at color scans, but mine has been surprisingly good at color. The scanned image is vibrant and faithful to the original. One huge plus is that it comes with two separate pro-grade PDF manipulation software programs. One from ABBYY and one from Nuance. Both programs do a good job with OCR, and each one has other capabilities that complement other. The ScanSnap software that Fujitsu provides is pretty good. The book scanning feature has some neat features, like the automatic finger detection and removal tool. The page-turning feature is a little hit or miss, but if it misses the page turn, all you need to do is wave your hand under the scanner and it registers ... MoreI’ve used this scanner for books, documents, drawings, and receipts. Some reviews stated that it is not great at color scans, but mine has been surprisingly good at color. The scanned image is vibrant and faithful to the original. One huge plus is that it comes with two separate pro-grade PDF manipulation software programs. One from ABBYY and one from Nuance. Both programs do a good job with OCR, and each one has other capabilities that complement other. The ScanSnap software that Fujitsu provides is pretty good. The book scanning feature has some neat features, like the automatic finger detection and removal tool. The page-turning feature is a little hit or miss, but if it misses the page turn, all you need to do is wave your hand under the scanner and it registers and starts another scan. Overall, I actually like the scanner more than I expected. It is definitely easier and faster than my flatbed scanner.