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HP ScanJet
5200C USB Color Scanner Review
(5200C, 5200Cse, 5200Cxi)
Last updated :07/29/03
OPERATION. In my experience, HP's PrecisionScan
version 2.0 software, with OCR, really sets this scanner apart. If,
for example, you are making Web pages with information obtained from hard-copy
brochures, this software can save an enormous amount of time. Take
a look at one Web
page I made with the software. Simply incredible! I did
absolutely nothing to alter the page. The scanner and PrecisionScan produced
this HTML page automatically from the hardcopy brochure. (The faded
parts along the bottoms of the top pictures, etc. are where the brochure
was folded.) Well, it's not always that good or that perfect. Click here for
another page which didn't come-out as good. Others weren't worth the
effort. Most were. Also, what you don't see is that the software
relies heavily on the absolute positioning capabilities found only in newer
browsers and which are not supported of difficult to work with except with
newer WYSIWYG HTML editors, such as Microsoft's FrontPage 2000. The
accuracy of the OCR and image optimization is good, but not perfect, by any
means. But still, you end up with the graphics and text on one page
and without a lot of typing or having to scan and optimize, for the most
part, individual images. A good starting point. I would guess
that it cuts by a third to one half the time and effort required to produce
a completed Web page from a hardcopy brochure or spec sheet and eliminates
much of what I dislike the most: typing-in raw text.
Footnote... PrecisionScan can save processed scans in quite
a few popular formats (e.g., it worked fine with MS Word). However,
FrontPage is not listed as one of them. However, if you save the scan
as a graphics and text HTML file in a directory of a FrontPage Web, FrontPage
2000 will pick-it-up as one of it's own.
If I had to do it over again, I would not install the Caere
Omni Page Pro trial software. I found it very distracting to have a
window pop-up every time I made a scan, to remind me I had so many scans
left before the trail version expired, and prompt me to buy the upgrade online. The
5200C comes with a lighter version of the software, which it apparently reverts
to after the pop-up has popped it's 25th warning. It seems to work
fine for what I do. I did not take the time to determine the difference
between it and the Pro version, as I was more than a little annoyed by the
promotion.
My 4p scanner is big enough to scan 8 1/2 X 14" documents. The
5200C is smaller and is limited to 8 1/2 X 11" documents; however, there
is an optional, 25-sheet document feeder for the 5200C which can handle legal-sized
documents. I did not obtain and test a feeder to determine for myself
if it's really practical for the work I do.
Specifications are available at HP's
Web site.
Larry
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