I'm planning on getting John a scanner for Swag Day (shh!), but since
this is a decent chunk 'o' change, I want to make sure I get the right
product.  It's going to be primarily used for scannning text that can
then be used in a word processor.  A handheld scanner would probably
be best, since he could hook it up to a laptop and use it in a library
on those darned "Do Not Circulate" books.
  
I am not sure what brand/type of scanner to get, or what software.
I am told that it should be an OCR grey-scale scanner, and that something
in the Logitech family would be best.
  
Help?
.,

21 responses total.

  The scanner hardware is probably not the important part (above a certain
level, at least.)  It's the OCR software that has to be good.

  When I worked at the Advanced Workstation Lab at U of M, I think someone
from one of the libraries was looking into this.  I think his name was John
Price-Wilkin, unless I'm thinking of someone else.  You might try sending
him email @ UM if he's the person I'm thinking of and ask what he found out.

Overall, if you can afford it, your best bet is to get a flat-bed scanner,
and scan in photocopies of the relevant works at home.  It is hard to get
smooth pictures with a hand-held scanner, especially in large books, as they
follow the contours of the page.  And the unprocessed images, at 300+ dpi,
take up a lot of disk space.

Or, if you're going for a hand-held, the Scanman seems to be decent, and is 
really cheap.

  I can report that at least one place at the U got a scanman; its not
as good as a 'flatbed' type of scanner, but it does do the job.  For a
portable unit I don't think you can beat it.

Have to agree with Aaron Larson, get a flatbed scanner, the handhelds border on
the 'barely usable' state of the art. Unless you have a ROCKSTEADY hand and
good support you will not  get a good image out of a handheld. Go for an HP if
you can,  they're really nice.

Re #3: The Scanman 32 with OCR is $300. What do you consider "expensive"?

CCS sells a Plustek 1200DPI true color (24-bit, 16.8 Million Colors) 
full-page scanner for only $489. It includes scanning software and a $150
OCR package.'

California Digital is selling a Dest2000 scanner, with Dest's Publish Pack
graphic software, for $389. The advert also says "OCR Text/Pac software
$99.", but it says OCR software is included. Cables for Mac included, but
a SCSI interface for PCs is $99 additional. The picture looks like it
feeds the original, rather than being "flat bed". Is this a good scanner?
Is this a BARGAIN, or a bargain??? ? (For PC users - CD is also offering a
Saba 5500 text (and non-gray tone images) scanner, with IBM interface card
and OCR software, for $159.)

Re #8 - more info: I couldn't find the DEST scanner in any current
mail order catalog, but I found the same DEST2000 setup in a 1991
Cal-Dig catalog (for $495), and a *picture* (no desc. or price) of
it in a 1989 Mico Marketing Int. catalog. The new price (in 19??)
was supposed to have been $2500. So, how well would the unit work
with Mac System 7.1 - or otherwise? (I am having visions of UM Property
Disposition.)  The SABA was also around in 1991, but not currently.

DEST made good scanners a few years ago. Their scanners were given good
ratings in various magazines. However, DEST has gone belly up, so any
DEST scanners you find for sale that are new, are probably leftover
from the fire sale, or liquidated when the company went under.
They are orphans.

I telephoned the California Digital technical rep number to ask about
compatibility. CD's blurb says "Friendly and courteous service since
1973", but apparently their slogan is as obsolete as the equipment they
sell. Boy, did he frost me! The problem, besides just a bad attitude,
appeared to be his total ignorance of anything about Macs. He had no idea
what "System 7.1" meant. However, he said I could bring over a "Mac", and
try it, if I wanted (17700 Figueroa St., Gardena, CA 90248). Anyone here
with a Mac with Sys. 7.1 live next door, and willing to test it? (Though
the neighborhood might be a "Mac Free Zone".) He did sound ready to
"deal", if I'd like to buy one "where is - as is". 

Found a page for DEST in veronicaspace: gave a CA address, and 1992 date.
No one (here, or on mac.notes) appears to know anything, but I am sure tempted!

Upshoot: I decided that $389 for an obsolete fed scanner with essentially
no warranty or support, and an unfriendly dealer, was a poorer bargain
than a new HP ScanJet 3p flatbed scanner that costs 25% more but with all
the "benefits". 

cool

So, Rane, did you ever buy that scanner?  Are you happy with it?
I'm going to need to buya scanner real soon now.

I bought the scanner, but have not installed it yet. I need a free
day (I feel). I look forward to using it.

Btw, I recently learned Kinkos added a scanner to their computer lab.  I
think it's $20/hr to use the machine it's hooked up to, and it's a Mac, 
though for small scans I'm sure it can read/write PC diskettes (it has
a Syquest for big scans).  Seems neat for occasional scanning needs.

NUBS has a couple of scanners.  Now that UM is out for the summer, I'm
looking forward to NUBS being empty enough to be usable.  During the UM
school year, I've found that the best time to use NUBS is Saturday night.

Last Saturday was the "free day" (see #16). It has taken this long to run
the ScanJet 3p (which is now obsolete!) because I did not have enough HD
space for the software. I installed a new HD recently (saga in another
item), so the time came. I hooked up the SCSI cable to the scanner,
installed the software and.... 

....the scanner test was fine, but when I started Scan (in HP PicturePlace
software), the system froze. I tried this a few times, but NG every time.
Then started a marathon of trying this-and-that that took all day
Saturday. I eventually booted with extensions off - and it worked - once.
After that, even with extensions off, NG. I then thought there might be a
bug in the software, so tried to Netscape to the HP page to see if I could
get an update - but Netscape crashed in a serious way. Therefore I needed
a new Netscape to get to HP to.... So I connected to a UM software server
with IPRAT and downloaded Netscape 2.01. The HP page offered a bunch of
scanner software, but it wasn't clear what would be useful, so I
downloaded all sorts of stuff so I could at least read the Readme (does
this sort of thing sound familiar?). Finally I found the PicturePlace
software that came with the 3P - available in German, French, Japanese,
Spanish...but not English. I chose German, loaded that - and Scan bombed.
Well, if its not the software, it might be my HD, so I did a DiskFix on
it, which found some bits unbundled, and also a defrag. Still no luck. I
gave up for the night. 

Today I booted up with extensions off to get back on the treadmill - and
Scan (in German) worked. So I booted up with only a couple of extensions
off (RamDoubler, in particular), and Scan worked. So I booted up with
everything running - and Scan *still* worked. Can you beat that? I guess
it needed a night's rest. I then reinstalled the software in English, and
even that worked. 

So, today I tried out a bunch of things. There is a lot to learn about
picture manipulation and editing, but I scanned a photograph and printed
it to a DeskWriter. Then I tried HP Copier, which makes the scanner and
printer work together as a copier, and that's a great utility. Finally, I
installed the OCR software (WordScan 1.2), and scanned in a typed letter
that I wanted to e-mail....another success (though a little tedious to
take it through the Verifier to a Word file to a server to e-mail, having
to re-edit a bit at each stage). 

Surely, others of you are running scanners, maybe even on inadequate
computers. What have you used and found useful? 

The hanging might have resulted from a SCSI problem.  Did you have any
other external SCSI devices on yesterday, but off today?  SCSI chains
that should work in theory don't always work in practice.  I've heard
that those pricey ($80ish?) "Active Terminators" with cool looking LEDs
solve a lot of SCSI probs, but have no personal experience with them.
 
I do post-scan image manipulation with Adobe Photoshop.  It's a great
program, though I'm sure there are cheaper solutions if you just want
to adjust image parameters like light, hue, color balance, etc.

I'm not ready for that yet - no color. The HP 3p is B&W. 
I had no other external SCSI stuff on for some time - since I
installed the new HD and copied over the software. The scanner SCSI
test said the scanner was in place, and the scanner test itself was OK.
I'm a little suspicious of those SCSI adapters for Powerbooks - not
very heavy-duty, and I have had connection problems if I didn't get it
well pushed in, but I'd think the scanner test would detect anything
like that.

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