Business Card Scanning from Scansnap iX500

[JeffCrowe8 0]

Scansnap Evernote Edition was not available in Asia when I needed a scanner, so I ended up with Scansnap iX500.  I love it, but am struggling with the boxes of business cards I've collected over the years.  

 

1) Is there a plan to make the Business Card processing available with Scansnap Evernote Edition available to others?

2) In the mean time, what's the best way to get SCANNED business card information into Evernote? 

[jackofnefarious 0]

no one?? this is a great question.

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

Scansnap Evernote Edition was not available in Asia when I needed a scanner, so I ended up with Scansnap iX500.  I love it, but am struggling with the boxes of business cards I've collected over the years.  

 

1) Is there a plan to make the Business Card processing available with Scansnap Evernote Edition available to others?

2) In the mean time, what's the best way to get SCANNED business card information into Evernote? 

1) This would be up to whoever manufactured the scanner to implement (in this case, Fujitisu). I think this is out of Evernote's hands unless someone says "Hey, Evernote, we want this in our scanner, will you license it to us?". Not a likely scenario given such a device (the ScanSnap Evernote Edition) already exists (although, as you point out, in a limited number of regions). 

 

2) Not that I know of. You could drag and drop the PDFs into Evernote. You could convert the PDFs to images which would at least be searchable (PDFs only searchable for premium users). Neither of these will result in the business card parsing to occur though. To do that, you could always PRINT your scan of a business card and scan it using the Business Card scanner for Evernote on your mobile device. 

[kdylpilot 1]

That is indeed an excellent question, one I am struggling with as well.  I have the ix500 (versus the EN version).    I understand the desire to differentiate the EN model vs the ix500.   Overall the EN seemed more restrictive, but here's one place I guess it is a step ahead.

 

Guess I'll resign myself to doing the photo business card scanning approach with the EN iOS app.   Not very practical.

 

I'll happily email and tweet my suggestion for allowing ix500 to do the same as the EN edition.

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

That is indeed an excellent question, one I am struggling with as well.  I have the ix500 (versus the EN version).    I understand the desire to differentiate the EN model vs the ix500.   Overall the EN seemed more restrictive, but here's one place I guess it is a step ahead.

 

Guess I'll resign myself to doing the photo business card scanning approach with the EN iOS app.   Not very practical.

 

I'll happily email and tweet my suggestion for allowing ix500 to do the same as the EN edition.

keeping in mind that this will be in Fujitsu's hands not Evernote's. 

[kdylpilot 1]

keeping in mind that this will be in Fujitsu's hands not Evernote's. 

 

 

 

 

True, though Evernote may be restricting Fujitsu from doing it based on licensing.   At least I would have if I was EN.  

[jackofnefarious 0]

Someone PLEASE help me. I still can't figure out what I'm going to be missing if I buy the EE scanner. Here are some thoughts in order for someone to help me decide:

 

1. I do like the auto-filing feature when it comes to business cards and LinkedIn, since I will be collecting cards. But is that feature enough? I guess it depends on what, if anything, I will feel I'm missing out on if I get the ix500 instead.

 

2. I will probably be scanning more than one type of document at my business; for example- invoices, packing slips, financial statements, various other reports. I understand that the auto-filing feature is going to put all of those docs in just one "document" folder in Evernote. Then I would need to tag them appropriately and move them into other folders, yes? I'm just wondering why people would think that just one folder for each document type (biz cards, photos, docs, receipts) is sufficient, and that more tagging and filing is not going to be required in the vast majority of situations. Doesn't this make the auto-filing feature less important, or, aside from the business card aspect, almost pointless? Who is not going to further refine the scans once they're in evernote? Tell me why the auto-filing feature isn't pointless.

 

3. There will definitely be times when I want to scan and email invoices to customers as quickly as possible. Is that going to be harder with EE? If it is, how much harder, and is having the business card feature worth it? Ugh... this decision is starting to get irritating. 

 

As I understand the differences:

1. EE - auto-detects scan types and files them into one of four folder types in your Evernote account. Further tagging/moving will probably be required. Also, any action with the scan (email, printing, opening with other software etc) will have to initiate in Evernote as that is the only place scans go. Business card scanning.

2. It looks better

Is that it? Or are there a few more differences I am not mentioning.

If I commit to Evernote for my scans, is there any reason not to get it? What am I really losing if I get either one? If I decide I don't want to scan only to evernote, does that make giving up the biz card feature worth it to buy the ix500? Or can I scan to a folder on my hard drive and a copy to evernote and then use the scans on my hard drive any way I want? Any advice is appreciated!

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

 

keeping in mind that this will be in Fujitsu's hands not Evernote's. 

 

 

 

 

True, though Evernote may be restricting Fujitsu from doing it based on licensing.   At least I would have if I was EN.  

 

There is no reason why Fujitsu couldn't come up with its own method of OCR'ing business cards and scraping linkedin information and perhaps leveraging the Evernote developer API to make a direct tie-in. 

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

Someone PLEASE help me. I still can't figure out what I'm going to be missing if I buy the EE scanner. Here are some thoughts in order for someone to help me decide:

 

1. I do like the auto-filing feature when it comes to business cards and LinkedIn, since I will be collecting cards. But is that feature enough? I guess it depends on what, if anything, I will feel I'm missing out on if I get the ix500 instead.

 

2. I will probably be scanning more than one type of document at my business; for example- invoices, packing slips, financial statements, various other reports. I understand that the auto-filing feature is going to put all of those docs in just one "document" folder in Evernote. Then I would need to tag them appropriately and move them into other folders, yes? I'm just wondering why people would think that just one folder for each document type (biz cards, photos, docs, receipts) is sufficient, and that more tagging and filing is not going to be required in the vast majority of situations. Doesn't this make the auto-filing feature less important, or, aside from the business card aspect, almost pointless? Who is not going to further refine the scans once they're in evernote? Tell me why the auto-filing feature isn't pointless.

 

3. There will definitely be times when I want to scan and email invoices to customers as quickly as possible. Is that going to be harder with EE? If it is, how much harder, and is having the business card feature worth it? Ugh... this decision is starting to get irritating. 

 

As I understand the differences:

1. EE - auto-detects scan types and files them into one of four folder types in your Evernote account. Further tagging/moving will probably be required. Also, any action with the scan (email, printing, opening with other software etc) will have to initiate in Evernote as that is the only place scans go. Business card scanning.

2. It looks better

Is that it? Or are there a few more differences I am not mentioning.

If I commit to Evernote for my scans, is there any reason not to get it? What am I really losing if I get either one? If I decide I don't want to scan only to evernote, does that make giving up the biz card feature worth it to buy the ix500? Or can I scan to a folder on my hard drive and a copy to evernote and then use the scans on my hard drive any way I want? Any advice is appreciated!

2. Yes it can really only differentiate between a photo, business card, receipt, or a "document" (like a bill, invoice, page of text, etc). It can't do anything more granular than that because it doesn't recognize text during the scan (and even if it did, it wouldn't have any context to base sorting on). Manual sorting beyond these broad categories will be required. If this isn't useful for you, then no, it isn't going to be a selling point for you. It may still be useful for someone else. 

 

3. I don't see scanning->emailing to be much harder with the EE than any other scanner. Scan a document, that document is in a folder (or evernote note), and you toss that document into your email program. It shouldn't be any harder with the EE compared to any other scanner. 

Only you know how much you will appreciate the business card scanning. 

 

Really no ONE of these features is sufficient to sell anyone on the product, it is the combination of several features that would likely make this appeal to someone. 

 

The conventional ix500 and the EE have many similarities, both can scan to EN both can scan to folders outside of EN. The EE has tighter Evernote integration, while non-EN features are a little bit more sparse. 

 

WHAT WILL YOU MISS WITH THE EE SCANNER: in short - you miss out on a bit of flexibility outside of Evernote. 

 

This has been debated at length in the Market forum. If, after reading those various (sometimes vitriolic) threads you can't decide, then I don't know what could possibly help you.