[X4U] sheetfed scanners

[Stroller]

On Sep 20, 2004, at 4:31 am, Michael Elliott wrote:
>
> How do you get Acrobat or another app to automatically OCR a file?  I 
> notice that using my flatbed Canon LIDE 30 and Canoscan Toolbox, that 
> the multi-page PDFs are already OCR text searchable in Preview when I 
> open the files.  Any idea how to get that functionality with a 
> 3rd-party?

I picked up a Canon LIDE (not the 30 model, I don't think) for a fiver 
at a car-boot sale (approximately the British equivalent of a yard 
sale) a while back, and was rather pleased when I found it had Mac OS X 
drivers. I subsequently sold it on eBay, tho', as I was very 
disappointed with it - I seem to recall that it took ages to scan & the 
images were very poor quality.

Was I doing something wrong, or was it just this particular model..? 
Should I look out for Canon LIDEs in the future..? What are other 
peoples' experiences with this model.

Incidentally, I've just bought a Canon printer, one of the new Pixma 
iP3000s, which I'm VERY pleased with. Colour output seems very good to 
my untrained eye - on plain A4 photocopier paper photos come out at 
adequate (colour newspaper?) quality; I guess special paper would 
produce better results, but I haven't tried it yet. The unit does a 
duplex page of maps & driving directions from Route 66 in perhaps 45 
seconds, and it prints directly on CD or DVD using a special tray.

Two small whinges:  I couldn't get it to print via a Netgear PS-121 USB 
print-server I bought, but nobody promised I was going to be able to, 
and I think to be honest that compatibility with such a 3rd-party 
device would be exceptional. I also find it kinda annoying to have to 
use the bundled application for CD printing, but when I tried printing 
from InDesign & choosing the appropriate options for tray & media it 
printed off the edge of the disc. If anyone else has this printer and 
they solve this, I'd be indebted to hear from them.

Stroller.