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If you need a scanner mainly for document archival and expense reports, it just can't be beat for the price. The two buttons on top (Scan and PDF) trigger a scan (or scan to PDF) into the currently active Microsoft Office application (if available).If you wish to upgrade to the full version of the NeatReceipts software, or if you're switching to a Macintosh, you can purchase the corresponding software directly from the company's web site (neatco dot com), and use it with this scanner.This product is amazingly easy to use, and the Neat Company has quite a knack for crafting excellent software. The scanner is capable of passable color results with photographs, but it's clearly not its strongest point.
You probably won't find a scanner with a smaller footprint, and you won't think twice about slipping it into your suitcase when going on business trips, so you can get a headstart on filing your expense reports (if you plan on traveling with the NeatScan, consider purchasing the Travel Case).The software installs in a couple of minutes; it adds a NeatScan toolbar to Microsoft Office applications, from which you can control scanning. When scanning to Word, OCR is performed automatically and results in an editable text document.Scanning a letter-size page takes around 10 seconds. This new NeatScan to Office product contains the same hardware you will find in the NeatReceipts Mobile Scanner and Digital Filing System or the NeatReceipts Mobile Scanner and Digital Filing System for Mac, but instead of the full version of software, it comes with plugins for the Windows version of Microsoft Office.The box contains the scanner itself, a USB to mini USB cable and a cardboard folder holding calibration paper, cleaning paper, a single use wet cleaning pad, a soft carry pouch and the software CD.The scanner itself is amazingly small and draws its power from the USB connection, so it doesn't require a power brick and desk clutter is reduced to an absolute minimum.
OCR processing can take about a minute on a complex page. If you have lots of documents to scan, consider the more expensive NeatDesk scanner which is faster, easier to feed and supports duplex scanning. Configuration could not be simpler, and after a quick run of the calibration sheet you're ready to go.
When scanning to Excel, you can use "Neat Sheets", templates allowing the software to know how to locate and assign information (this is geared towards filling up expense reports, but can be customized easily to perform a variety of tasks).
My husband is thinking about asking his office to order him one for work. It did pretty well, a little better than average. It translated the document well into digial format, except for the parts that had been written on (with which you would expect to have less than optimal results) and where it would just insert extra returns.It's small and portable, which is nice. This product's set up was pretty easy. We give this a good recommendation, with the caveat that it is somewhat better than the average OCR program. It did need to be calibrated a second time before it would work and scan adequately, but that may have been human error. They included useful instructions. We used it to scan a paper copy of a word processing document.
One of the best purchases I have made for travel equipment. Excellent product. Creates good scans and integrates with Office products as advertised.
In particular, the Excel plug-in allows scanning as an image only; I would really have wanted some way to scan a printed spreadsheet into Excel as values. Software installation went smoothly, other than getting bit while trying to install a SW upgrade (I didn't pay attention to the "must Run as Administrator" warning for Vista, my bad). The only issue I had with Word is that scanning a document as an image caused a black text on white paper to become black text on grey. I thought that the Scan to Office SW did a very good job of scanning a formatted Word doument with an embedded table - I needed to do a bit of cleanup to get the table borders correct, but otherwise the formatting was very close to the original and the text was spot on.
The Neat Company "NeatScan To Office" does what is is supposed to do - scan documents to Microsoft Office apps - seamlessly and with only a few limitations. PowerPoint allows scanning documents in as an image or text; there is no option to scan as formatted text. When scanning color graphics, the resulting output had a significant color shift and too much contrast.Unfortunately, not as many features were allowed for the plug-ins for Excel or PowerPoint. The scanner is quite small (1.5" x 2.5" square, about 12" long) and should easily fit into a computer bag for travel.
Scan to text also worked fine. Now of course you can work around these limitation by scanning into Word and then using cut/paste to Excel or PowerPoint, but it is too bad that these limitations do exist.Two other things: scanning directly to a searchable PDF is supported, and scanning of B&W / color photographs is supported (but just about unusable due to the color shifts and contrast issues above).In summary, this is a nice portable solution that does what it's made to do well, but it misses 5-star territory due to its limited functionality with Excel, and gets no extra credit due to mediocre image scanning. Another plus for potability is that the unit is powered completely from a computer's USB port; no external power brick is needed. The unit's best features are reserved for Microsoft Word plug-in, where you can scan a document in as an image, as unformatted text, or as formatted text.
No way to be disappointed with this workhorse - don't let the size fool you (it's totally compact and portable). This gadget performs miracles. I can't believe how many hours of my life I save by zipping through huge piles of receipts, how many contacts I maintain by simply feeding through a business card, how much typing I avoid by scaning a document into text.
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