The Visioneer StrobePro takes up such a small area of your desk, you hardly know it's there. Only 11" wide x 2" high x 2.5" deep and just 1.3 lbs, you can tuck it away right beside your monitor base. Because it is about the size of a rolled up magazine, it can fit in any long slender spot. It has a surprisingly big bang for such a compact little machine. All you do is feed in your color or black and white documents or images and Visioneer StrobePro will launch the included Paper Port software that places documents and images on the PaperPort desktop.
The scanner itself is easy to hook up and operate. Setup was a snap. Directions from the Getting Started Guide or PaperPort CD will walk you through connection to the serial or USB port on your computer. An optional parallel port connector is offered.
Operation is a piece of cake. There is no on/off switch to worry about. You just feed in a piece of paper and the scanner comes to life. The software starts automatically and quickly shows your scanned document on the screen. In the unlikely event of a paper jam, there is a small button on the scanner to back out the document. (My only jams occurred when I inserted a long piece of paper on an obvious angle.) All in all, this hardware is amazingly well designed.
The Strobe accommodates many kinds and sizes of paper, but can only handle a maximum of 8 1/2" width. The paper you feed into the scanner must be loose. Anything from paper scraps and magazine articles to full color photographs to newspaper columns up to 30 inches long will feed through easily. However, you cannot scan from books, large documents, or magazines, unless you cut out the article you want to scan.
The PaperPort software is also impressive, a dream come true for an organizational expert. Simply drag and drop scanned documents to and from folders on your desktop. Filing and retrieving paperwork is easy as pie. You can stack documents and photos just by dragging them on top of any other document or photo. You can also search for documents by title, keyword, comments, or other criteria.
Poor photographs can be improved with the AutoFix Picture tool and the PictureWorks PhotoEnhancer. The scanner can also do your copying; just drag a scanned item to the printer for a color or black and white copy. Documents can be distributed quickly with the e-mail connection. The included OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software can turn scanned documents into editable, formatted text.
A system called PaperPort link is included in the PaperPort software. The link system creates a toolbar of icons for the other software that you have on your system. You can add documents and photos to your favorite applications such as Word or WordPerfect. Just drag a scanned document to a PaperPort link icon on the toolbar and you'll be able to work within the applications of your choice. Links to over 100 programs are provided which includes most major e-mail, word processor, photo, and graphic programs. PaperPort's software automatically compresses images and scanned files reducing them in size to take up less space on the hard disk.
This Visioneer StrobePro is a treat; great for the average computer user who wants to scan in all their accumulated loose documents and paper scraps. If you are constantly cutting out newspaper or magazines articles and need to organize your collection of paper, you will find this scanner easier to use than any flat bed scanner. However, if you are dealing with a lot of photos or graphics, you may want a higher-resolution scanner which can be used to preview and tweak scans. The retail price on this scanner is a little high. Street prices are lower. If you can find the PaperPort StrobePro at the right price, you will appreciate its uncomplicated design and easy to use features.
