Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i Portable Color Duplex Document Scanner for Mac or PC, Classic

I purchased this scanner to replace a full size do-it-all cannon pixima. The cannon was in the office with my work computer but was connected wirelessly to our home computer in the kitchen. I hate piles of paper - so my plan was to scan incoming documents to our home computer and shred the actual paper. Doing this on the canon took FOREVER and often required many trips back and forth between the kitchen computer and the canon in the office. I finally decided I need a scanner connected directly to our home machine to make it less painful. We have limited desk space in the kitchen so I wanted a machine with a small footprint. I saw the Neat-desk setup at Sams but it was expensive and the reviews poor. After talking to someone at work who owned the neat-desk and told me to avoid it I ruled out that as an option. The reviews for this scanner were almost too good to be true. I purchased it after a night of being particularly angry at my few month old Canon. It took maybe 5 minutes to install the software and hook up. It was a bit smaller than I expected - a bonus in my case. As for the performance all I can say is WOW, what a difference. The scanner turns on when you open the paper feed tray - then you hit the big blue button and like 2 seconds latter you are done. It is so fast and scans both sides at once. I scanned a whole pile of paper that had accumulated in minutes....I was saving that pile to do on the weekend because that is what I had to do with the Canon. I was trying it out after connecting it and it was so fast and simple that I went through the whole pile. I scan everything to PDF and I haven't tried OCR-ing things into WORD because that is not what I wanted t for. All I can say is that it is refreshing wen something works better than expected. As I read in an earlier review It performs best with similar sized sheets. However, I have seen it straighten out a regular sized receipt that got hung up on another page in the stack of paper I put on there and it went through at like a 30 degree angle. The PDF looked as straight as the rest. This thing is small and Fast. Highly recommended.

I'm a contractor in IT. I work on my own and needed a good solution for scanning and storing tax receipts as well as having a generalized document scanner for storing other documents I want to digitize. For the past year~, I have been using Neat Receipts, which was a quick, impulse buy when I needed a better way to store my receipts and track my deductions. Neat Receipts was driving me up the wall with numerous software-related issues; eventually I couldn't take it anymore and started searching for a new document scanning solution. I researched and investigated several document scanners out there, including models by Epson, Doxie, Brother and VuPoint. Some of them look great, but to my surprise, many were limited with tax-receipt solutions (they would scan documents, but didn't really have OCR-capable receipt software bundled in). I needed something that came bundled with some solid software for storing all of my tax receipts. One name kept coming up in my searches as the best all-in-on document scanner; Fujitsu. Albeit I work in IT and I am extremely competent in computer hardware, I was not very familiar with Fujitsu as a company and can't say I've ever owned nor worked with any of their products both in college or on the field (most likely because they are a Japanese company). I researched Fujitsu as a company as well as their line of products. I eventually came across the ScanSnap 1300i, which is similar to the 1500 model except it doesn't scan as many documents at one time not as fast a speed. $240~ is a big investment for me and was kind of out of my price range (I was really looking for something in the $150-200 range). But I learned the hard way with neat receipts; go cheap and you get what you pay for. Cheap junk that breaks in a year and comes with bloated, subscription-based software. I decided to bite the bullet and buy the ScanSnap 1300i. The scanner came packaged nicely and secure, and contained all the documents and cables needed to get me setup. Hooking it up to my Windows 10 workstation, I was quick to test it's receipt scanning capabilities. I have to say, I was instantly blown away; this thing blows through receipts, and albeit not as fast as the 1500 model, it absolutely smokes neat receipts. It's multi document capabilities are fantastic as well as it's ability to scan both sides of documents, also unlike Neat Receipts. This scanner is truly the "Cadillac" of document scanners. In regards to receipts, which is what I bought this for, the software comes with "ScanSnap Receipt", which I can't say enough good things about. It's simple, lightweight software with excellent OCR capabilities. When you scan receipts, they will load into an "inbox", where you can check over and verify the information on them; once finished, you can drag them to different folders you can create; I like to sort mine by year. Receipts can be quickly exported in CSV format and the software also comes with an "export to quickbooks" function if you are into that. The s1300i has some other, nice features built-in. For one, it powers down briefly after closing the lid. I like that it's eco-friendly (also energy star certified) and doesn't waste power when not in use. A nice touch; mine came with cable, so I can either power it via USB or with an AC power cord. Never a bad thing to have more than one means to power it, especially if an AC outlet isn't available. The closed lid can also help protect the insides from dust/dirt/debris. The scanner has adjustable plastic parts, to help fit to the side of the documents you're scanning and an extendable backside for scanning full-sized sheets of paper. It's not the most mobile-friendly device although it is a "mobile scanner"; it feels like it weights about 5~ pounds at least, although I like that it's sturdy. It does have it's limitations; very long, wrinkled, and/or thick receipts/documents may have problems. Sometimes scanning multiple receipts has issues, where it will try to feed two or three at a time. But the computer software always catches it when it does, and allows you to fix and re-scan, so it's not all bad. Also, common sense; don't stick thick plastic (like credit cards) inside of it or documents with staples/metal parts. Overall, I absolutely love this scanner; any of the negatives above are very small and overshadowed by how incredibly well it performs. I have tried it with different sized documents as well and it just absolutely blows through them all and scans them perfectly. My review is very eccentric towards receipt scanning so I'm going to leave it at that; if you need to track all you receipts throughout the year and are tired of sticking them all in a box or paying someone else to digitize them, buy this. This scanner is phenomenal, it absolutely blows away Neat Receipts, the price tag is so-worth it, this is a serious piece of hardware backed with very solid driver software; everything you will ever need in regards to tracking your receipts and expenses.

Recently, I was searching for a hard copy receipt from a purchase made a year ago and after several days of searching, I finally found it. Yes, several days. I have receipts, bills, other important documentation, and way too much paper saved in filing cabinets, boxes, desks, and who knows where else (Hence, I can't find them!) It was finally time to reduce this volume of "crud" and go electronic. Upon searching for a scanner, I called my sister who has a business and does A LOT of scanning. Without hesitation, she recommended the ScanSnap S1300i. I purchased the scanner and was pleasantly surprised by its' small size. It is about 11" wide by 3" tall and 4" deep, portable, and light weight. It was very easy to start up, connect to my laptop, download updates, and get it running. I am putting this scanner to work from scanning papers (some crumpled), receipts, light weight paper, multiple sheets at once, pretty much anything I can think of. It works GREAT. The best surprise has been that it scans double sided - it is like a magic genie - if it realizes there is information on the front and back of a page, it creates a scan of both sides of the document. It also scans very fast. Much faster then the all in one printer / scanner that I have. Paper Jams are very easy to fix. It also will straighten paper should they start to scan crooked. Although you can scan and save scans several ways, I just choose scan to folder. I am surprised just at how well this product works and am very pleased with the purchase. The best part is as I am scanning documents, I am recycling the hard copies and saving a lot of space. GREAT PRODUCT! I should have purchased this a long time ago. Reviewed by G. Swanson

My wife and I finally were able to tackle the disaster we called our office in our home. One of the biggest issues was that we had papers everywhere. It was time to go towards being paperless. To do this I needed a scanner. I did some searching around. I normally go for HP products but looking around the Fujitsu's really stood out. The office we have isn't very big so we wanted something small. Not really portable but that seemed to be the only way we could get "small". So I gave this thing a try. The install is straight forward and easy. I'm running MS Server 2012 and didn't have any issues. Right when the software was loaded I had access to the scanner. It comes with an application to help you go paperless but I'm not using that at all. I'm using PaperPort 14 (standard) for my file organization. This scanner is not TWAIN compliant which means you cannot scan directly into 3rd party applications (such as PaperPort). So using the ScanSnap software that came with the scanner I was able to build a custom profile to scan documents into what I called a "Unsorted" folder. So now put the pages I want to scan into the feeder, press the button on the scanner, and all the documents are scanned to PDF format and put into that folder. I can then organize them as I need. The scanner works when it's powered on and your logged into a user profile on a PC. I also found that if you "Lock" your user profile you still have the ability to scan documents without needing to access the PC. So I can take documents as I get them, put them in the scanner, press the scan button, all without touching my PC. The performance of the scanner is good. It scans both sides of the document and can be customized a whole bunch of ways to fit what you might need out of it. It is a little noisy, probably due to the small size. Larger scanners will have a bigger shell to keep things toned down. It's small and doesn't get in the way. I'm excited to dig into things down the road and get everything organized. Also, anybody looking to go paperless remember that you'll want a solid backup solution. There are many ways of doing this but having an automated application is the best way. I use an application called StorageCraft ShadowProtect. This is a sector level backup utility so it captures anything that is written to my hard disk. I backup up the data volume to a stand alone internal drive that is used for my backups. I then replicate those backups to my external Seagate drive. You even have options of replicating offsite via FTP and other routes. Going paperless is great unless the hard disk crashes and you lose everything. Don't let that happen to you.

I purchased this scanner in conjunction with DevonThink Pro Office for my Mac. An expensive combination but I have been itching to go paperless and the Fuji ScanSnap line of scanners have native support for DevonThink which is generally regarded as one of (if not the best) the better document management software packages out there for the Mac. The scanner is extremely easy to setup and is very compact. Scanning is pretty simple, although it's worth noting that the "forward" document side of scans is the side that is facing towards the paper tray... which is a bit confusing... fortunately the ScanSnap tries to orient your scans automatically, so not that big of a deal, but if you are scanning a multi-page document then if you don't properly then your resulting multi-page scan will be in the wrong order. Scan quality itself is outstanding. I've scanned business cards, lease contracts (that were 4-5 times the length of a normal page), documents with lots of small type, etc, and this scanner does a great job with all of it. I even scanned some old birthday cards and they came out looking great, even the color seemed to be pretty accurate. One of the big advantages of this scanner (in addition to the small size and speed) is that it is full duplex, so you can scan all of your double sided stuff in one pass, which saves quite a bit of time, especially when scanning things like financial documents which are printed out on both sides (and which you want to fully capture). The only real downsides that I have found to the scanner is that there is no output paper tray, and the input paper tray is very limited (perhaps 10 sheets safely go in).. so if you need to scan larger documents it can be a bit of a hassle. Also, I don't know about others but I do get semi-regular paper jams with this unit. Frequently a scan will look like it has gone through fine but the ScanSnap Manager software comes up with an error indicating that scanning was halted due to a jam and I have to open the unit up, and re-do my scan after reloading the paper... I've noticed that this seems to happen quite a bit more frequently with certain kinds of paper, paper folded a certain way, etc. I don't think much can be done about this, but I have gotten into the habit of watching the scanner and trying to "pre-straighten" any documents that appear that they might not load correctly... I also will sometimes grab things that have scanned so that the paper output area does not get cluttered and potentially cause the scanner to believe that it is jammed. The second thing I've had happen is that the paper loading tray basically folds up and out of the unit. This is a clever trick so that you can fold the whole thing down for travel... folding the paper tray down also puts the scanner to "sleep" (the blue light goes off). The problem that I've had is that the paper loading tray is a little bit flimsy. When I opened it up one time I applied just a bit too much pressure while trying to extend the final section and it came off in my hand. Fortunately I was able to fix it, but it was a bit surprising. I really like this scanner, but as I occasionally scan larger documents I am wondering if I should have upgraded to the next model up, which has a larger capacity than this one... it's also worth pointing out that this scanner does track the use of "consumable" parts in the scanner, and after those parts are exhausted, you will be asked to replace them. Hopefully they are not too expensive. On the whole though, great product, drivers work great, and so far it's worth the price I paid.

I bought this on the recommendation of my boss who, like me, had struggled for years keeping file cabinets, receipts, and all his business documents organized. Watching him declutter his office - and especially his newfound ability to instantly provide any archive I might ask for - convinced me he was on to something with this scanner. I ordered one and couldn't be happier with it. As a computer programmer, I have a very low tolerance for crappy software. I'm very pleased to report that the included software with this device is great. It doesn't try to install a bunch of ad-laden bloatware (although I did not install all the included stuff like Evernote, but I can attest you have to proactively choose to install it, it doesn't automatically load it) like slow browser toolbars or Java runtime (it's a native app). The boot/startup time of my system was unchanged after installation. And the software isn't noticeable until you press the "scan" button. Then when you're done, it politely goes away. Thank you, Fujitsu, for designing this device for your customers and not for your marketing partners!!! As far as using it, it's very simple. The software has an Office 2007 feel to it, replete with ribbon bar. It's very easy to change the default settings to your taste (and pretty much everything can be altered, even the default filename created when you scan). The document manager is intuitive and simple: you just scan a doc and drag it to whatever cabinet it belongs in. A really lovely quality is that the cabinet and folder structure in the manager utility matches the folders in your file system, so you can easily access your scans using a regular file viewer (as in to open in Adobe Reader directly). This also makes backups easy - just point your favorite cloud backup provider to the folder and go. Regarding the scanner part: the scans are very good quality, and the OCR function works seamlessly. This isn't likely to be your scanner of choice for high-res family photos you want to archive (although I scanned some photos and the quality was very good on them), but it is a good general purpose scanner. Keep in mind it's primarily built for paperless document management. And in general, I'm a believer in the principle of building products to do one thing, and do it really well, and in this regard, this scanner succeeds perfectly. My only gripe is that documents (especially flimsy papers) can slide off-track pretty easily. I've found that simply holding it steady while the scanner pulls it in a bit to setup the scan makes the document scan straighter. The crookedness isn't a huge deal (especially for receipts) because the software does a great job of straightening and cropping the output, but it can be problematic on larger papers where the angle interferes with pulling the document into the scanner. Thankfully, the larger docs aren't as likely to lean as small, flimsy receipts. Still, the next version would benefit from having more robust adjustable tracks to hold the documents straight. In conclusion, this is an awesome little device that does its job very well. It's a product built to be used, not as a vehicle for marketing other services. If you're looking at that shoebox full of receipts or the banker's box fill with old invoices and credit card statements, do yourself a favor and order this thing!!

Update: Aug 2020: I'm downstarring this product from 5 to 1. I've used this scanner for just over a year. At first, it was great. And, when it works, it's still great. However, about every two months it suddenly doesn't work and I get the following message: >>>"Unable to connect with ScanSnap due to an error in the program's operating environment. Uninstall ScanSnap Manager, and then install it again." This inconvenience usually happens at the most hurried time of my work day. I'm forced to uninstall the Manager, wait for my computer to re-start, re-install the Manager, and reconfigure any preferred settings. I don't have to do this for any other program I have on my PC. It's highly irritating and inconvenient. I cannot recommend this scanner if there's another less irritating one out there (which I don't know if there is because this is the only one I have). ----------------------------------- Original 5-star review: Gosh, this is a really great scanner. I say this as someone who is retired and is just using it to get rid of paper files in the house. It’s easy to set up and, once you get used to the software, it’s easy to use. The software took me a while to get used to it. First, I ended up having to download some of it from the Fujitsu (dot) com website. The download was an unusually long process. Then, I had to get used to where everything was in the software. I didn’t find it intuitive at all. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out where the Settings button was (click the big round Application button in the upper left, then Scan Button Settings). I also couldn’t figure out how to edit my scans (right click the pdf, then select ScanSnap Organizer Viewer, then Edit); there is also a way to make this the default (big round Application button > Options > Popular >Mouse Operations). Occasionally, one page scans upside down; I don’t know why, but I now double-check every pdf to be sure it scanned correctly or else I edit whatever needs editing. I had one document of semi-transparent papers double in size because the scanner picked up the dark text on the back side of the pages; I had to go through and delete all those extra pages. Also, if the paper you are scanning is flimsy, it might be best to tape it to another page and scan it that way. My scanner tore up one of my flimsy pages. The software that comes with the device is called the ScanSnap Organizer; this is the base software. You can also install the CardMinder software for managing business cards and the Receipts software for managing receipts. There is also the Abbyy software for turning your pdf into an editable Word document (this works great!). I recently discovered there is a new software available for the 1300i (and other models). This software came out in late 2018. It’s called ScanSnap Home. I haven’t tried it yet. However, it can be downloaded from Fujitsu. It replaces some of the software in the above paragraph. You can’t have both on your PC. This new software offers a few new functions, but it also does not include certain functions that are available in the older software. So, it’s a trade-off depending on what functions you most need. Lastly, I find the pdf’s to be of decent (not the best) quality. I can also scan, though in a time-consuming page-by-page manner, on my HP printer, but the scans are better quality; side-by side, the HP scan is crisper and clearer. For what I want to scan, this isn’t a big issue. If you’re looking for top quality, maybe for photos, I’d suggest looking at other devices.

I've had my scanner for a little under 24 hours, but I am already in love! I own and operate two small business out of my home. My paperwork and receipts are clogging up my house. This scanner makes it incredibly easy to get rid of most of that! It's fast, the software is fairly intuitive and simple, and it gets the job done! Awesome features: - very simple to add or remove pages, move pages to other PDF documents, organize files into "cabinets" and subfolders, etc. - the default 'save to' folder is a temporary folder that will auto-delete after 10 days. Simply unchecking a box will save files indefinitely. I'm not emailing or sharing any of my stuff, so this was important. - it scans quickly! Both sides of the page are captured in one pass, so by the time I've renamed my file, I'm ready to scan the next one. Like some other reviewers have said, there are a few minor things that could be improved upon: - the software will bump you out of whatever else you may be trying to do at the same time you are scanning. Annoying, but since I'm scanning and renaming each document, I'm not spending a whole lot of time in other windows, anyway. - it occasionally auto-rotates my pages upside down. It is easy enough to rotate them back, and I may be able to turn auto-rotate off, I'm not sure at this point. - the business card software is cryptic. Granted, I've read exactly zero instructions or documentation on it, but after winging it once, I closed it and decided not to bother. I can't yet comment on the OCR software - I did convert a few files and it was a fairly quick process, but I don't plan on needing to do much searching, as my documents are all separated and have important keywords in the file name. Will update with anything else as I spend some more time with it.