Scansnap and Catalina

I suspect I am not alone in relying extensively on my Fujitsu scanner in conjunction with DEVONthink. I actually purchased my S510M with a view to moving paper into DTPO back in the day, and it has served me very well over the years and is still running happily. I think I had to clean the rollers once but its been a rock in general.

However Catalina nixing 32-bit will see an end to all that. Fujitsu only offer a 64-bit ScanSnap Home, an app which recognises only newer models such as the iX500.

Any of you folks aware of other options I may have than ditching a perfectly functioning scanner?

You may install VMWater Fusion (virtual machine, with some older than Catalina MacOS version). Than install the old ScanSnap software and Hazel on that. You can shae a folder between that old version system and a Catalina folder. In Catalina another Hazel fuction can import the scan into DTP3. I didn’t test this, just a possible solution?
By the way, after advertising so many years for Fujitsu, the DT people may be justified (if they didn’t do this already) to put some pressure on Fujitsu to keep old scanners usable under Catalina.

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Thank you JP, I’ll investigate that. Hadn’t considered a VM. I had wondered whether there was any third party software, or a plug-in for DT itself be a possibility.

I don’t know their status with Catalina development, but Vuescan has been supporting the unsupported in scanning for a long time.

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By the way, after advertising so many years for Fujitsu, the DT people may be justified (if they didn’t do this already) to put some pressure on Fujitsu to keep old scanners usable under Catalina.

Unfortunately, the tail - or in our case, the flea - cannot wag the dog. :stuck_out_tongue:

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I have a Fujitsu iX500 and ScanSnap Home refuses to recognize the scanner under Catalina. However VueScan does recognize the iX500 and offers far more control over the scans than Fujitsu’s ScanSnap software ever did.

I still hope to get ScanSnap working again!

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I chose DEVONThink because of the tight integration with ScanSnap. With this broken, the workflow is broken and the biggest advantage for choosing DEVONthink.

Could a deal be worked out with VueScan or ExactScan to replicate the functionality through a plugin somehow?

the biggest advantage for choosing DEVONthink.

What’s the biggest advantage?

And choosing DEVONthink over… what?

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Finally back at my desk, it looks like Vuescan will fulfill the role handsomely, 64-bit and updated regularly. It includes the Fujitsu S510M in the compatible scanners list.

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The Vuescan option has already been mentioned. There is also fScanX Home Edition, which is specifically supporting the old ScanSnap scanners. I have not tested this software, but it is on the Mac AppStore, which gives it certainly some credibility.

http://www.elevated-dev.com/Products/fScanX/Home%20Edition/index.html

I have a fi-5110-EOXM, bought in 2006 (!) and it is still happily scanning away. A fantastic device. Fujitsu has not made new drivers for years, but the final version still works. Catalina will bring an end to that. At that point I will either check out Vuescan or fScanX, or, will use an old iMac in my office as my official “32-bit legacy” machine. Scanning into a folder on Dropbox or iCloud, the files will right away be available on my main laptop.

Concerning a previous comment about ScanSnap integration into DT: Even though I have both, I always scan external to DT, and then import. But if you want good integration (say because you have a lot of files coming in), and Vuescan/fScanX can’t be integrated, you could use Finder Folder Actions and set things up such that the folders in which Vuescan/fScanX dump by default, are automatically sending the files to the DT Inbox. DT OCR could then right away work on them. Maybe not as good as full integration, but pretty close, no?

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Looks like fScanX hasn’t been updated in 4 years. Is it a 64bit app?

Been using VueScan as my main scanning app for something like 20 years. A super solid program with a long history.

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Yes, just bought the Pro version. It does a super job with my Epson scanner as well as the Fujitsu document scanner.

I am in exactly the same position. I have two of the brilliant S1500M machines and it’s rather shocking that Fujitsu are abandoning this excellent hardware in their software.

I am hoping to attach mine to Raspberry Pis and have AppleScript watch the share and auto import / OCR that way. Mind you I haven’t started doing any research on that yet…

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You are brave! Keep us up to date on this - I love a good hack!

I have the same scanner and tried Vuescan back in June. I could not get scans directly to DEVONthink to work properly. A multi-paged scan was producing a separate file for each page. Hamrick (Vuescan) was not able to suggest a solution (they did graciously refund my purchase price, however). I know I could get by this by scanning to a different location/software but tentatively decided it was time for a new scanner… But, do you scan directly to the DEVONthink inbox and is it working well for you?

do you scan directly to the DEVONthink inbox

Unless you aren’t using OCR, you should not do this.

From the release notes:

Scans from external applications sent directly to the Global Inbox via the Finder sidebar will not be processed with OCR and an error in the Log window will be shown automatically.

I take it you had purchased the Pro version of Vuescan? That allows document scanners and multipage PDFs.

I’ve had no issues with it creating multipage PDFs on my end. In the Input menu I choose the ScanSnap, the Doc Feeder and the media size of A4. In the Output tab I have PDF checked, PDF Multipage On and PDF paper size of A4.

When I click on Scan it sets off scanning and creates a PDF in my DTPO Watched folder (watched by Hazel and triggering an Automator import).

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I described my process as, “scan directly to the DEVONthink inbox” but I guess that is not what I actually do, but it is the result! Using ScanSnap Manager ver 3.21 L80, I created a profile using Application DEVONthink (or, perhaps it was created by DEVONthink during the install process - can’t remember). I scan to a non-Devon folder and I do not have ScanSnap perform OCR. DEVONthink preferences are set to Convert Incoming Scans: To searchable PDF, and, Original Document: Move to Trash. So, I wind up with an OCR’d document in the Global Inbox and the scan-to folder empty.

This end result was what I was not able to accomplish using S510M and Vuescan.

I did purchase the Pro version and I was able to create multi-page PDFs. I just wasn’t able to get them to land in the DEVONthink Global Inbox. I do have Hazel and I could do an auto-move to the DEVONthink inbox but, at the time, I was considering that DEVONthink smart rules may satisfy my Hazel needs and I didn’t want to create a new reliance on Hazel.