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| The Entertainment Review |
| IRISCard Pro 4 Business Card Scanner |
There are many ways that business owners can keep track of their large numbers of contacts. From the Rolodex to individual business
cards, the number of ways to store these contacts in limitless, but the desk space needed to store these contacts isn’t, that is unless
you business owners have the new IRISCard Pro 4, a business card scanner that helps keep track of contact information. For
business owners that don’t have the budget for a desktop document scanner, or for the business owner that needs to have a small,
compact scanner that can travel, a business card scanner is the perfect product. The IrisCard Pro 4, priced around $199, is definitely
worth considering in these situations.
The IRISCard Pro 4 hardware is very similar to the IRISCard Pro 3.5 scanner that it replaces, at least when it comes to the resolution of
scans and size of the scanner. The 600-pixel-per-inch optical resolution is more than enough to recognize the names and addresses
on the business cards that are being scanned. Sizing up at 3 inches high by 6.1 inches wide by 1.9 inches deep, and weighing in at a
tiny 5.6 ounces, this scanner is very portable and is small enough to fit on a desktop without taking up much space.
The setup for the IRISCard Pro 4 is standard. Like many of the available business card scanners available, the scanner gets its power
from a USB cable that is supplied. This leaves the users to install the software that is supplied with the scanner and connect it to a
USB port. Once the scanner is set up, users will need to calibrate the scanner using the calibration sheet that is packaged with the
scanner.
As with any scanner, the software is much more important to the consumer than the hardware is. It determines how well the scanner
works, and does most of the work for the user. The software, Cardiris Pro 4, stands out because of its ease of use and accuracy to
recognizing text and which text is in which field, from name, street, city, state, phone number and more.
One element that many users may enjoy is the automatic feed mode that is available. When this mode is turned on, the scanner will
start scanning when a card is placed in the input slot. This allows a quick feed rate without having to give the scan command for each
individual card. This allows users to feed cards as quickly as if the scanner had an automatic document feeder, although users will
need to feed each card individually.
Once business cards have been scanned into the system, users can choose to recognize all of the newly input cards at once. Users
can then go through the results on their computer screen and compare a scanned image of each card with the recognized text. All
cards are marked as unverified until the user verifies the cards.
The software is much more accurate than previous software of this type. Even with version 3.5, users would see a few mistakes in the
names, company names and phone numbers on the majority of cards. This time around, version 4 can read roughly half of the cards
without making a single mistake. Mistakes are going to happen though because of different types of fonts. That is by far the greatest
improvement, though it isn’t as good as the more expensive CardScan Executive which recognized more cards without mistakes.
Once users have scanned, recognized and verified some cards, Cardiris Pro 4 can serve as a contact manager and send the data that
is imported to a wide variety of contact managers, including Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Palm Desktop, IBM Lotus Notes and
more. The ability to transfer these contacts is very useful, especially to those how have a lot of contacts and would like to download the
contacts to a portable device.
Cardiris Pro 4 also includes a Twin Driver that allows the scanner to work with almost any Windows software that has a scan command
available. The driver even includes options for scanning 3.5 by 5 and 4 by 6 photos, with a largest scan up to 4.5 by 12 inches. Though
the scanner doesn’t work as the best form for scanning pictures, it works for a rough scan. One problem with scanning photos with the
scanner is the fact that the photos can slip while going through the scanner, as a result, users may need to feed some of them through
more than once to get an acceptable scan. The scan quality is usually good enough for business purposes if the user is willing to risk
the originals.
One issue that some may have with the scanner, which isn’t really a big problem at all, is that the setup program installs a WIA scan
option that shows up in certain programs, but if the options is chosen, users will get an error message. According to IRIS, this error
message is expected because of the limitations that WIA has. Since it would be recommended to use the Twin Driver as the preferred
choice, the WIA limitations are a limitation to anyone who wants to use the option. While WIA support and photo scanning are great
extras for a business card scanner, most users would not miss this option if it wasn’t included.
With the accuracy of the IRISCard Pro 4, users can expect an accurate job in recognizing the text on business cards and saves a lot of
time that would normally be spent typing the information into a contact management program. Because of its overall balance of
program design, scanning and recognition accuracy and reasonable price, this is a portable business card scanner that is worth
considering.
cards, the number of ways to store these contacts in limitless, but the desk space needed to store these contacts isn’t, that is unless
you business owners have the new IRISCard Pro 4, a business card scanner that helps keep track of contact information. For
business owners that don’t have the budget for a desktop document scanner, or for the business owner that needs to have a small,
compact scanner that can travel, a business card scanner is the perfect product. The IrisCard Pro 4, priced around $199, is definitely
worth considering in these situations.
The IRISCard Pro 4 hardware is very similar to the IRISCard Pro 3.5 scanner that it replaces, at least when it comes to the resolution of
scans and size of the scanner. The 600-pixel-per-inch optical resolution is more than enough to recognize the names and addresses
on the business cards that are being scanned. Sizing up at 3 inches high by 6.1 inches wide by 1.9 inches deep, and weighing in at a
tiny 5.6 ounces, this scanner is very portable and is small enough to fit on a desktop without taking up much space.
The setup for the IRISCard Pro 4 is standard. Like many of the available business card scanners available, the scanner gets its power
from a USB cable that is supplied. This leaves the users to install the software that is supplied with the scanner and connect it to a
USB port. Once the scanner is set up, users will need to calibrate the scanner using the calibration sheet that is packaged with the
scanner.
As with any scanner, the software is much more important to the consumer than the hardware is. It determines how well the scanner
works, and does most of the work for the user. The software, Cardiris Pro 4, stands out because of its ease of use and accuracy to
recognizing text and which text is in which field, from name, street, city, state, phone number and more.
One element that many users may enjoy is the automatic feed mode that is available. When this mode is turned on, the scanner will
start scanning when a card is placed in the input slot. This allows a quick feed rate without having to give the scan command for each
individual card. This allows users to feed cards as quickly as if the scanner had an automatic document feeder, although users will
need to feed each card individually.
Once business cards have been scanned into the system, users can choose to recognize all of the newly input cards at once. Users
can then go through the results on their computer screen and compare a scanned image of each card with the recognized text. All
cards are marked as unverified until the user verifies the cards.
The software is much more accurate than previous software of this type. Even with version 3.5, users would see a few mistakes in the
names, company names and phone numbers on the majority of cards. This time around, version 4 can read roughly half of the cards
without making a single mistake. Mistakes are going to happen though because of different types of fonts. That is by far the greatest
improvement, though it isn’t as good as the more expensive CardScan Executive which recognized more cards without mistakes.
Once users have scanned, recognized and verified some cards, Cardiris Pro 4 can serve as a contact manager and send the data that
is imported to a wide variety of contact managers, including Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Palm Desktop, IBM Lotus Notes and
more. The ability to transfer these contacts is very useful, especially to those how have a lot of contacts and would like to download the
contacts to a portable device.
Cardiris Pro 4 also includes a Twin Driver that allows the scanner to work with almost any Windows software that has a scan command
available. The driver even includes options for scanning 3.5 by 5 and 4 by 6 photos, with a largest scan up to 4.5 by 12 inches. Though
the scanner doesn’t work as the best form for scanning pictures, it works for a rough scan. One problem with scanning photos with the
scanner is the fact that the photos can slip while going through the scanner, as a result, users may need to feed some of them through
more than once to get an acceptable scan. The scan quality is usually good enough for business purposes if the user is willing to risk
the originals.
One issue that some may have with the scanner, which isn’t really a big problem at all, is that the setup program installs a WIA scan
option that shows up in certain programs, but if the options is chosen, users will get an error message. According to IRIS, this error
message is expected because of the limitations that WIA has. Since it would be recommended to use the Twin Driver as the preferred
choice, the WIA limitations are a limitation to anyone who wants to use the option. While WIA support and photo scanning are great
extras for a business card scanner, most users would not miss this option if it wasn’t included.
With the accuracy of the IRISCard Pro 4, users can expect an accurate job in recognizing the text on business cards and saves a lot of
time that would normally be spent typing the information into a contact management program. Because of its overall balance of
program design, scanning and recognition accuracy and reasonable price, this is a portable business card scanner that is worth
considering.
