Product Description:

The IRIScan is a light weight portable scanner that can easily fit in your gear bag.

Scans without the use of a computer, Ideal to scan books & magazines, the scanned documents are stored into the included MicroSD card, use the documents in Word/Excel/PDF/etc. Color / Monochrome (Mono) scan selection, Directly save JPG file to MicroSD card, Supports up to 32GB, Windows 7 or above / Mac OS 10.4 or above (direct plug-in, driver installation not required) / iPad compatible (sd card with adaptor)

Hardware Specs

• Resolution 300×300 (low), 600×600 (high)
• Maximum scanning speed for A4 size document
• Color High resolution: 13 Seconds
• Color Low resolution: 3.0 Seconds
• Mono High resolution: 6.0 Seconds
• Mono Low resolution: 2.0 Seconds
• Capacity (Based on 1GB MicroSD card, A4 sized scans)
• 600dpi color: 220 Photos, 600dpi mono: 290 Photos
• 300dpi color: 780 Photos, 300dpi mono: 1280 Photos
• Scan width: 8.27in
• Scan length 300DPI: 50″(Max), 600DPI: 25″(Max)
• File format JPEG

Package Contents

• IRIScan Book 2 scanner
• Readiris Pro 12 CD
• 2GB SD Card
• IRIScan Book 2 pouch
• 2 x AA alkaline batteries
• USB Cable
• Cleaning cloth
• Calibration sheet

There are three control buttons which are located on the top of the scanner along with a status LCD and LEDs. On the side you’ll find the USB connector, microSD slot, along with time and format switches which require a paper clip or some other thin pointy object to press them.

The IRIScan Book 2 is an A4 sized scanner. That means it has been designed to scan a typical 8.5 x 11 sized page. You can scan pages longer than 11 inches (see specs above), but the width is pretty much fixed and is designated by the arrows printed on the bottom edge of the scanner.

The scanning element and the rollers can be seen by looking at the bottom of the device.

To start using the Book 2, you first have to load the included AA batteries. Then power it on by pressing and holding the main Scan button on the top of the device (this is the button directly to the left of the battery compartment.

The status LCD shows the number of stored scans, battery capacity and type of scan (color/mono, high or low dpi). The type and resolution can be toggled by pressing the buttons to the left of the LCD, but it defaults to color, low (300 dpi) resolution.

Missing is some sort of capacity indicator to let you know how much room you have left on the microSD card. That said, it can hold 100’s of scans depending on the type and resolution, so it’s doubtful you’ll run out of space in one scanning session.

To scan, you just place the scanner on the document, making sure the scanned area is kept between the arrows on the scanner, and press the scan button. You then roll the scanner down the page and press the button again when you’re finished. Simple. If you happen to roll the scanner too quickly, a Red warning LED will light up. You can scan pretty fast though. I didn’t have any issues with speed.

Scanning individual documents is the easiest to do because they are flat sheets of paper. Magazines are the next easiest things to scan and books can be the most difficult due to the fact that they are hard to lay flat. I did find that if you can’t scan a document from top to bottom, you can scan from the bottom up or even from side to side if you need to.

The next step is to get the scans from the scanner into your computer. You can do this several ways. The first way is to pop out the microSD card, put it in the included SD card adapter and then into your laptop or desktop. You can also connect the scanner directly to your computer with the included USB cable and access the files that way too. The scanned images are saved as .JPGs. From there you can print, or just file them away.

If you want to get a little more advanced, you will need to install the included Readiris software.

This software has two components (at least the Mac version does…). There’s a Drop2Read application, that will sit in your dock, waiting for you to drag and drop a scanned image. This app can be configured to convert the .JPG to a RTF, HTML, OpenDocument Text, OpenXML, Open XML Spreadsheet, PDF or Unicode plain text. When you drag and drop a file on this icon, it will automatically convert to the desired format and save the file to the destination folder. From there you’ll have to go in and rename the files if desired