Recommendations on business card scanners ?

May 20, 2008 4:56 PM

Looking for recommendations on business card scanners to be used with a laptop running Vista.

The real need is something that has OCR software so the scanned cards can be automatically entered into MS Outlook address book. not something that just saves an image of the card. I've seen a few reviews but trust the MeFi collective more than random reviews on websites.

posted by 543DoublePlay to computers & internet (6 comments total)

you could always use your cameraphone (or camera) as a scanner. Scanr or Qipit.

(note: I've used neither. I don't work in a business where I get lots of business cards but I heard about these two.)
posted by sharkfu at 5:51 PM on May 20 [1 favorite]

I used to sell these. A little pricey but very functional. Another brand to consider is Iris.
posted by netbros at 6:52 PM on May 20

Is carrying around a piece of equipment and messing around with OCR software really worth the effort saved not doing a little data entry?
posted by gjc at 8:06 PM on May 20

Cell phone camera not a very good option I'm afraid.

For gjc, nobody will be carrying anything around, and the "little data entry" is the entry of many business cards obtained at trade shows.

I thought the idea of posing a question on Ask Metafilter was that you didn't have to deal with snarky answers like "Is carrying around a piece of equipment and messing around with OCR software really worth the effort saved not doing a little data entry?", which does not answer the question posed in any way, shape or form.

Thanks netbros, I will look at the suggested options.
posted by worker_bee at 5:44 AM on May 21

Worker bee- It doesn't look like you are the original poster. So we don't know it that person's intent is. 543DoublePlay didn't say anything about trade shows or his volume of cards.

My answer wasn't intended to be snarky. *I* thought ask.metafilter was about solving problems for each other. Part of that is helping to revisit the scope of the problem. Sometimes when we are engrossed in solving a problem, we forget about the earlier decision points that inadvertently narrow the scope of available solutions. If my answer wasn't helpful, please ignore it. But it may well be helpful to others.

To reiterate my proposed solution, there are time, effort and dollar costs involved with adding a piece of hardware and software to ones life. Especially when you consider that business cards are rife with every font under the sun. Is it worth it? For some people, absolutely. For others, not so much.
posted by gjc at 7:10 AM on May 21

My apologies to gjc. I posted the question from home on behalf of everyone in our small office, and a 'colleague' decided to respond to your answer from his own MeFi account. I appreciate all responses to questions I have posted here, including yours.
posted by 543DoublePlay at 2:41 PM on May 21