Scanner glitches can't be papered over

Remember the "paperless office"?

Futurists used to predict that computers would eventually be the end of paper documents. That forecast has turned out to be as accurate as the one that put a personal helicopter in every garage.

The truth is that the ease of writing and revising on a computer, as well as the ability to make multiple printouts, has led to more paper in our lives than ever.

Today the challenge for business and home-office users is capturing the information on all that paper and getting it back into computers, where it's more useful.

That's where scanners come in handy, with their ability to copy pages and use character-recognition software to turn the images into words and numbers. Unfortunately, scanners still have a long way to go in the accuracy department.

Take, for example, NeatReceipts' handheld scanner, which is marketed to business people in airport shops and office-supply stores because of its ability to digitize paper receipts.

The device, which resembles a three-hole punch, attaches to a computer via a USB port. To use it, you simply feed a receipt up to 8 ½ inches wide into a slot in its side.

Ten seconds to about a minute later, depending on the size of the receipt and the complexity of its content, information on the receipt shows up on the computer screen, including the name of the business, category (grocery store, etc.), payment type (cash or card) and amount.

That's when it works perfectly. But I found problems more often than not.

A receipt from a pizza place correctly identified the category — "meals/restaurant" — probably because the place has "cafe" in its name. But NeatReceipts didn't pick up anything else, including the amount.

My electricity bill also was categorized as meals/restaurant — maybe because of the way my house eats electricity? — and the payment type was listed as a Diners Club card. I don't have one those.

A scan of my home-delivery bill for the Los Angeles Times got the amount right but categorized my employer as a "transportation" company.

Stranger still, a medical-lab bill was listed as coming from a grocery. Furthermore, the amount it gave for the lab bill was $25. The actual amount was $151.56.

In all, I fed NeatReceipts 13 receipts of various sizes and types. Only four yielded more than a couple of correct entries.

I could use my computer to type corrections and add missing information, but it was a disappointing performance from a machine that sells for about $250.

NeatReceipts performed much better in a task mentioned only briefly on its box: scanning business cards and putting the information into a contact database. But there are other card readers available that cost less and do a good job.

A portable scanning device on the market is the DocuPen R-700 from Planon Systems Solutions. Meant for situations when a full-size scanner is not available or practical to carry, the DocuPen is a wand-shape gadget that is drawn down a page to capture its image.

The DocuPen, which sells for about $200, does a fairly good job, but it's far from user-friendly. Making a scan and downloading it to a computer involves more steps than an Alice Waters recipe. Unless those steps are followed with precision, the result will be a smudged scan.

The text-recognition software — ScanSoft PaperPort 8.0 — that came with the DocuPen worked terrifically well with the scan, even when the image was a bit off-kilter.