ScanSnap S510M Instant PDF Sheet-Fed Scanner

This machine is a pretty good solution for Mac users whose desks (and sometimes floor) have gotten lost under towering stacks of paper. Scanning really is more snappy with the automatic paper/document feeder, one-button scanning and Fujitsus ScanSnap software that allows you to adjust controls for: - quality (normal=fast, better=faster, best=slow, excellent=slower) p.s. best is not actually the best. - color mode (auto-detect, color, black and white) - which sides you scan (duplex, single-sided -- if you choose duplex, it automatically deletes blank pages) Although scanning with this machine is normally a smooth process, paper jams do happen. The likelihood of a paper jam obviously depends on the documents paper quality. Clean and uncreased documents go through most smoothly. With these documents, you can practically walk away worry-free and come back when the scanning is done. For documents that have been stacked tightly together for some time, I do have to watch out for two sheets feeding through at the same time. For documents that tend to stick to each other, I have to smooth out dog ears and creases as best I can, cut off corners that have been stapled (not just use a staple remover), feed singly and/or watch over the scanner to clear any jams that reoccur. Clearing paper jams is extremely simple: use the grey latch (above the scan and power buttons) to swing open the front part of the machine, and pull out any paper. Other perks: The inclusion of Adobe Acrobat Professional helps justify the pricetag. The small size (and lack of bulk) makes it easy to carry or store. Downside: Besides the price, PC users cannot use this model of ScanSnap. Im not sure why Fujitsu has to have two separate models for Mac vs. PC users.

I bought this scanner after looking for an affordable solution to clearing up the paper that had accumulated in our house. This scanner has been fabulous and is really attractively priced (especially when there are rebates) for a unit used at home. I have been able to clear up multiple drawers from several file cabinets that included: taxes, receipts, recipes, magazine articles, bills, etc. I now am confident that I can actually located something when I need it for taxes or warranty work. The scans are clear and the text recognition is very good. In addition I find the software to be very flexible and works with my workflow. I have two different scenarios for use: 1) Daily As I get my mail and open it or pay a bill, I mark it paid and immediately scan it and then shred it (this is where I cant already get an electronic bill). 2) Bulk scanning Here I will typically sort paper into sets, this is where the software flexibility comes in. I take everything that needs double-sided scanning and is the same number of pages and I set the software to create a new document every n-pages. Then I can stick a stack of pages in that arent related and let it do its job. If I have a stack of single sided items I make sure to mark it like that in the software and everything goes smoothly. Originally I bought this when I was using OS X 10.4 (Tiger), upgraded to 10.5 (Leopard) with no problem. I had to wait till a new driver and software was released before upgrading to 10.6 (Snow Leopard). It works just as smoothly as before with the new drivers. This has really reduced the amount of paperwork that stacks up in the house and with Spotlight on the Mac, I can find these documents way better than I could in my filing cabinet. I highly recommend this product to those looking to reduce paper!

Have now had this for almost 3 years. Fantastic product! Easy to use. Great form factor (folds up when not in use, does not take up a lot of space). Occasionally the page feeder will feed more than one page at a time and have to start a scan again but that is a rare occurrence. Lots of settings that enable great flexibility re: how an item is scanned / what done with it after the scan completed. Would highly recommend. 2015-09-14 : scanner still going strong. use it all the time. More than 90,000 pages scanned and still going strong... Mostly paper scans but have also scanned thousands of photo prints I took in pre-digital camera days...Dont know what i would do without this little machine.... It has let me go about as digital as possible.

I found this scanner very easy to use with my Intel Mac. The Adobe Acrobat software is worth quite a bit, so as a whole this is good value for money. The Fine Reader software works well, and if you have a Mac, you cant buy it separately, it only comes with this bundle. The resulting, searchable PDFs, made with Fine Reader are a little bigger in filesize than I had hoped. That is the only downside. The scanner is neat, quiet, and easy to setup. The interface and software work well in a Mac environment. Theres also a document holder included for scraps of paper, so they dont get lost inside the scanner. All in all, this is a very good product.

A friend insisted that I upgrade to a ScanSnap S510....I didnt read ad carefully enough to note that scanner offered for sale was for a mac and not a windows pc.... but all was not lost. My daughter was pleased to get such a wonderful gift and loves it. Me..I went to the Amazon Market Place and purchased a Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 to work on my Windows system and I am very pleased. Anyone interested in a used Visioneer XP450 in great condition? I find that recently I have become long on scanners

If you have Snow Leopard, or planning to upgrade dont buy this scanner. It was great until I upgraded to Snow Leopard now its just a paper weight. I cant use it until they come out with an update to fix it. Fujitsu says it could be until the end of December before I could use it again. Hopefully its fix before tax time because that was the reason I bought this thing.

I can only repeat what others have said: I love this thing. I looked at several other sheet-fed scanners from HP and others. Nothing seems to do what this does. It is very simple, very well designed, a very fast. My advice is to download the updated software on the support site - scanning profiles is a nice feature. Im a grad student who is overloaded with research and documents - this made it very simple to create pdfs and use spotlight to search for them when I need them.

It wont be any surprise, given the trend of good reviews, for me to follow suit. I am another *very* satisfied customer. Like one of the recent reviewers, I realized you had to have the ScanSnap Manager open for the button scan to work. If you dont have it open, the LED on the scanner will flash. It works well with the stock ABBYY FineReader, and Acrobat, as well as the DEVONthink suite, and Readiris. Here is a question I had for you other ScanSnap owners... now that youve got this fabulous device, and have scanned up your stuff... do you have an expensive scanner collecting dust, or are you finding continued uses for it? It seems to me, to be able to keep free from the clutter, by digitizing as much as possible, is worth the price of admission.

This thing is simply amazing. It is the fastest scanner. I cant begin to say how great this is. I have scanned now over 7 thousand pages of files and pictures. The only time you will get a feed failure is if your paper is really old. I had a few when I ran some 15 year old stuff that had been in storage. In that case you just feed a few one at a time and since it only takes one second per page it would still be the fastest scanner you ever used even if it came with no doc feeder. I was sceptical about pictures but when i compared them to my cannon 600 scanner the Fujitsu won hands down. Cannon has been retired. Had some friends over and saw it. They got upset because in their business they have the big honkin HP $2000 scanners and could not believe the quality for being so small and cheap. They too were sold and said they would be purchasing these in the futre. This has helped me get rid of 3 huge bins of files and I can now find them easily on my hard drive. Comes with full Adobe Pro and is awesome. See the pictures I have added for size. Update:Feb 4, 2009. Still going strong and still love this thing. Update: May 5, 2014 Still Working Well

It does its job. Really fast. Scan well on color pages but not black and white pictures. There were several pictures from a fashion magazine I wanted to keep so I scanned it in and it turn out really bad. The scan looked like pencil sketchings and you cannot see any color gradation at all (basically black and white...no greys). I gave it 3 stars cos its good overall if you dont need to scan black and white pictures. Plus I think its a bit expensive for a pretty basic function.