Does anyone have experience using any of the business card scanners that are available? They seem like they could be a real timesaver.

Any input will be appreciated.

Just got one a few weeks ago after getting back from a trade show. You can get more info from the Targus Website (http://www.targus.com/us/product_details.asp?sku=PA570U) (Link goes directly to product page).

I found it straight forward and simple to set up and install. Compared to manually entering each card, it is definately faster. However, here are a few drawbacks that I have experienced.

1. It comes with its own proprietary contact database, and then you have to export the file into a database format, and then suck it into your contact manager (like Outlook). However, you can, through an export feature, manually save each contact into your Outlook as you enter them. This may be getting too technical, but I don't believe that it syncs with public contact folders either (NOTE: only pertinent if you are on a network running Microsoft Exchange and using public contact folders)

2. It may fully recognize about 1 out of 10 business cards that you scan. The others will need minor tweaks. I found the most common problem is recognizing the company name. Many companies simply have their logo on their card, which the scanner has difficulty with.

A nice feature that I liked was having an image (grayscale) of the card.

My two cents. Hope that helps.

I've been very satisfied with this model: http://www.cardscan.com/ executive model

The selection was the result of a carefull comparison made about 6 months ago for a client

I face the same recognition problems as jvance, but apparently, much less frequently. Each card needs a verification, but the corrections seem to be needed in less than 10% cases, and they are usually very minor. Indeed, the scanner does not like the fancy characters used sometimes in the company name

Generally speaking, the quality of the recognition depends for 90% or more of the mechanical quality of the scanning process. If the card is not perfectly aligned, has an unusual thickness, has moved during the process, was a mediocre photocopy etc.. then the OCR is bad. This is true for all scanners and all OCR


I was also able to develop an export utility (in VB, so it requires programming) to store the cards in my own format (I have a system where companies and contacts are clearly differentiated with separate records for companies and for contacts)

Hope this helps

Thanks. Both replies were very helpful. It sounds like the Cardscan might be worth the extra money.

There are a lot of business card scanner. Cardscan is one that worth to look at.

This is interesting topic and gave many good post. It is very useful and informative. :)