Nice design! It measures 2.5 x 11 inches and is black-blue in color. It has a cool curvey design--kind of an elongated teardrop--and it fits easily between keyboard and monitor.

It's lightweight Weighing less than 2 1/2 pounds, you could actually toss this thing into a computer carry-on bag.

Neat SCSI pass-through plug This plug puts the PaperPort at the head of your SCSI chain (joining your flat-bed scanner, Zip drive, etc.). A little dial on the plug lets you assign an unoccupied SCSI ID.

Attractive and minimal documentation. Sometimes sparse documentation is not a good sign, but in this case, it means hardware and software that actually do their job so you don't have to spend days with your nose stuck in manuals.

I already like this thing and I haven't even hooked it up!

After taking a second to figure out which SCSI IDs are free, I dial an ID number and plug in the PaperPort. The only small problem is that the pass-through adapter is fairly large and it, combined with the plug from my Zip drive (the next device in my chain), extends so far behind the computer that I have to move the computer forward on my desk, sacrificing valuable desk space. The fasteners on the adapter are also very close to the adapter itself and are made of thin metal which is very hard to screw in while leaning over the front of my desk.

Finished with the hardware set-up, I power up the computer again and move on to software installation. Software set-up is a no-brainer. Next, I feed in the calibration sheet that came with the unit, and after the sheet rolls back and forth for a few seconds, it's ready and so am I.

PaperPort Strobe image scanned from a catalog sheet. It's actually
better than this, but I reduced colors for quicker loading.

Wow, this baby is fast! I feed in a tax form (mumble mumble IRS!) and it's on-screen almost instanteously. The PaperPort is paper-switched, so it turns on whenever you feed anything into it. I spend the next hour rummaging through my office trying to feed it things that it won't like. I'm unsuccessful: pictures, postcards, newspaper articles, business cards, Post-It Notes, you name it, they all load in 3-6 seconds and are surprisingly sharp. Some of the photos are even better than the ones done on my flatbed scanner. I try the Xerox TextBridge OCR (optical character recognition) software that comes with it and am amazed at the low error rate. I get cocky and try a Post-It Note that has my chicken scratch on it. Not surprisingly, only an "I" is recognized.

The PaperPort 5.0 software is first-rate. It offers an alternative desktop where you repair and manage your scanned documents. There are a series of folders set up and you can create your own. You also have access to the rest of your hard drive if you want to store scans elsewhere. A link bar on the PaperPort desktop lets you drag your scans into applications that PaperPort recognizes (over 150 to date). Built-in Web publishing features allow you to drag pictures to an HTML editor for conversion to GIF or JPG and text documents can be automatically converted to HTML. A number of photo fix/enhancement tools (such as Red Eye Removal) allow you to greatly improve the quality of scanned images. I could go on and on. There are so many things to like about the PaperPort Strobe and its software. The Visioneer website is also very useful, with tips submitted by users and info on third-party software designed to work with PaperPort.

At the dawn of the computer "revolution," there were many predictions about the paperless office. I don't know about you, but here at Street Tech Labs, we have to peek over stalagmites of books, magazines, papers, and print-outs to see anyone. I sometimes feel as though I'm literally drowning in paper. The PaperPort is the closest thing I've seen to a tool that can stem the tide of this dead tree invasion. I can't wait to see how much clutter I can reduce, and what info gems I might unearth in the process. Gee...there wouldn't be any uncashed checks in here, would there?

- Gareth Branwyn [11/3/97]