Portable Scanner Recommendations

Good morning, all –

Can anyone who uses a specifically portable scanner, please share some recommendations, suggestions, or best-avoided tips, please? I need to purchase one – and my one non-negotiable is its ability to connect with Devonthink.

I did do a quick search, and didn’t see any current or recent posts in this. If I missed a thread, my apologies.

I have a ScanSnap iX100 that works well, though controlled by the ScanSnap Home software.

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Not what you asked for, but for my portable scanning I use the scan documents feature of my iPhone/iPad

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A great reminder not to over-complicate – and an excellent backup for times when that scanner (whatever it ends up being) isn’t available. Thanks!

Thanks!

I’m finding it crazy-difficult to identify which scanners are compatible with image capture. I’ve spent hours today, and I’m no closer to an answer than when I started. It seems a shame, since I’m actually buying at the moment, not to get one optimized for Devonthink.

Look for ICA scanners. That’s Image Capture.

I have been happy with my Canon P-215 portable scanner. Another fantastic scanner resource is the SANE Project which does a good job of facilitating drivers for older off-support scanners. In fact, my P-215 is no longer supported by Canon (only has 32-bit drivers) but I can use it plugged into a Raspberry Pi running SANE. There is a Canon P-215ii that is still supported, I believe.

Scansnap too :+1:

and I use Hazel to tag and copy into DT

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I have a Canoscan LIDE 220 (there may be a more recent version). The advantage of this model is that it is bus-powered — it draws power from the USB cable connected to your laptop, so no extra cable or power brick is needed. Hence, it does not connect via WiFi or BlueTooth. It scans up to a legal-sized original, and is about 1 inch thick, so it’s easy to carry in a laptop bag. It’s ideal for mobile research where you occasionally need to scan various books.

It works with the Image Capture app (macOS). In the “Scan To” drop-down menu, select DEVONthink’s Inbox to send the scanned document directly to DT. You can also use DT’s import feature, but I have not tried it. The scan quality is excellent and you can scan to a variety of formats and resolutions.

Thanks for weighing in on this!

As long as the scanner software isn’t set up to do OCR.

Hi Jim, why, may I ask? (I have my Fujitsu set to do OCR, and send it to DT inbox)

Because DEVONthink could import the scanned file before OCR occurs.

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