Hand held scanners

[Ed]

Is there anything out there like the old Scanman? I need to be able to scan text and images in the field, so to speak. It seems that all that is available are pen like things that scan a few lines at a shot. Is there anything better out there? Flatbeds are out.

[Chris Haynes]

I was going to say "no", because all I had found were the pen scanners and one which you feed paper through. But I was looking at www.buy.com and asked for scanners to be listed by low price first and found this:
http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10225552&hdwt=30901&loc=15960&sp=1

The thing is... I can't see the picture well enough... who I think it may be the one that you slide the paper through. So the answer may still be "no".

I would also like a handheld scanner to get jot down infor from references in the library (they frown on people who tear the pages out to scan through the pass through types).

[Ed]

I found this

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=3862448757&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT

But it looks like it covers a swath of only an inch or so.

After a bit of pokeing it looks like that Antec deal is a sheet fed thing.

[Soapy Sam]

Ed- If this is stupidly inapplicable, please ignore.

Have you considered using a digital camera?

[Chris Haynes]

So it seems neither is what we would like... the one you found cannot cover much... and the Antec one requires sheets.

I have a flatbed scanner that I can lay across a book (an HP 4600). It was quite useful for scanning pages of a 120 year old Bible for genealogical information. Unfortunately it does require an AC power connection, so I cannot drag it to the library to scan pages of a book for reference -- plus it is a bit bulky).

I remember the old hand-scanners, and the conniption fits Boeing Security had when they came out almost 20 years ago. They were afraid folks would quietly scan and walk out of the office with company secrets (I wonder what kind of fits they are having now with tiny USB flash drives).

I now wonder if the quality of scans from those were dependent on how steady a hand was in moving it across the page. I think that a small version of my HP-4600 that could be powered though the USB connection might work. Something along the line of 4"x4" or even 8" x 4".

Though there seem to be lots of pen type scanners that depend on hand speed. It may be the way I will be going in the next few months.

I wonder if there are any of the hold handheld scanners in some kind electronic junk store collection?

Good luck.

Editted to add... while posting I was poking around www.froogle.com and found this:
http://www.computers4sure.com/product.asp?productid=2057313&affid=10000483 ... I think it might be what we are looking for.

[Chris Haynes]

This might be it:
http://www.planon.com/docupen.php

The idea of a digital camera is not bad... though it would have to be a camera with a lens that works well for a printed page. In the days before copy machines my father used a camera to photograph an out-of-print library book. He attached the camera to his enlarger so that it was held steady at the proper distance and used good consistent lighting. It is an okay copy, but not great (though I did attempt to scan it once using OCR -- a technology that still needs lots of work).

[Ed]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
Ed- If this is stupidly inapplicable, please ignore.

Have you considered using a digital camera?

Yes, that is what I do now. The basic problem is that 1) the damn books curve and that makes for lousey pictures and 2) you can use a flash and get highlights or not use a flash and get blur (a tripod is not really an option).

This is not a biggie, it just seems to me that the hand held jobbie would be a convienient solution.

[Chris Haynes]

Originally posted by Ed
....1) the damn books curve and that makes for lousey pictures ....

When I read reviews of Docupen's full page hand held scanner there were complaints that it did not handle some of the book curves well. Though I suspect you could try to alleviate that by starting at the curve and pulling it across sideways on the page.

I had a conversation with an electronics guy at Office Depot who told me that HP had proprietary software to handle book curves. Which is why when I scanned the 6" thick family Bible the sides were not that bad. It would be nice to have a small portable version of their HP 4600... one that may require 2 or 3 scans to get a whole page.