Something not mentioned in the article is that Fujitsu states that their new (64-bit) scanning software will absolutely require an always-on internet connection in order to do any scanning. This is concerning on a number of levels. Usability and availability is one issue, but in both my work as a physician and as an IT security consultant, I regularly scan documents that absolutely must not be published. (If you think there’s a functional difference between “sent to the cloud” and “published,” then you haven’t been paying attention.) So if the need for an always-on connection implies that they’re sending scan data to the cloud (“all your scan are belong to us”), then ScanSnap is no longer a viable solution if you scan anything like bank statements or other financial instruments, identification documents, personal correspondence, photographs of family and friends, medical documents…
I have had a license for VueScan since the 90’s, though when I got my first ScanSnap (S510M) in 2008, I switched to using its included software. A couple of months ago, when Fujitsu notified me that my S510M was end-of-life, I dug out my old copy of VueScan and was pleasantly surprised to find that (1) my “professional” license was still valid and (2) the features of my ScanSnaps that I really wanted seemed to be supported (with the exception of wireless scanning over WiFi, which I didn’t expect to work).
My workflow is pretty simple: the overwhelming majority of scans are duplex, save as .pdf, deskew, crop, and OCR. It did take some fiddling to get the options the way I want, but VueScan has performed quite well. My environment is high-volume, time constrained, and overall demanding in ways that home users would never experience. I scan a diverse array of documents (though few photographs; those all start and stay digital) of various sizes and shapes. On my S510M alone (possibly my lowest volume but also my oldest device) I have scanned over 25,000 pages. Once I got the settings dialed in (not trivial, but it only took two or three days) everything has worked great. I have not seen the cropping problems that Dave described, which would have been a deal killer for me. I have had far fewer failed scans that I did with the ScanSnap software, though that might be due to no longer using WiFi, which was the source of a lot of grief with the ScanSnap software.
I originally licensed VueScan because I owned an expensive flatbed scanner whose manufacturer abandoned the Mac. I feel rescued by VueScan again, and will be buying more licenses for other machines at my office. In my case, at least, it was the droid I was looking for.
–Ron