Kodak Alaris 1025006 S2040 Document Scanner

The media could not be loaded. I have been needing a scanner to organize all the paper in our household. I never thought I’d be so thrilled with the purchase of a scanner! I installed it last week and keep finding new ways to use it. I installed the Smart Touch software that comes included and set up just a few scan settings to send my documents to different locations. (personal records, work expenses, photos) – this is awesome, now I just touch one button and my receipts go straight to my work email as PNG files, my tax documents go to Google Drive, and my photos are being saved on my external drive in full color. All files are named consistently too since the software handles it all. Today I added a 4th Smart Touch option to capture my daughter’s artwork, we labeled it “Artchive” (ha!) The included 3-year warranty was a key reason I purchased as the entire unit can be replaced if something goes wrong. The scanner has been really easy to set up and use – and the images it captures are great quality!

The scanner scans well but after 3 days of moderate use the scanner cannot seemed to scan the documents individually and your just with multi-feed errors all day long. I now have to feed the documents into the feeder one by one to get this stupid thing to behave correctly. And yes I have tried used, new and all types of paper and it just won't separate if feed as stack

Extremely easy to use, very fast and results are great!

My plan for this scanner is to eliminate physical stacks of paperwork that must be preserved and archive photos and easily share them with family and friends. Overall I am pleased with the scanning operation but the software could be more user-friendly. If interested, specifics follow.Using a Windows 10 PC the first step is to download and install the scanner drivers and the firmware update from the company website. Next register on the website which entails providing name, state & country, phone number and email address. Then a link will be sent to the user’s email for the Smart Touch software then download and install.Next connect the scanner to the computer using the included USB cable. The scanner can now ready to use. I also used it with scanning software that already exists in Windows 10 called Fax and Scan or a new app at the Windows store can be downloaded.A general 78 page User Guide is downloaded with the drivers but for detailed information about using the Smart Touch software I went to the support page on the website for this scanner model where I found a 34 page Using Smart Touch manual. It explains that after everything is loaded correctly, including the app, a Smart Touch Icon will appear in the PC system tray.Right click on the icon and a configuration menu appears where scanner options can be chosen. There are 9 pre-configured options and more can be added if desired. Each option can be set for destination, file type, file name and various other choices. After setup is complete those options will then be accessed through the scanner’s control panel not through the computer screen. .I selected the icon on the computer and configured the pre-defined option for black and white PDF and sent it to a folder on my PC and named it--Test--followed by the date and sequence number. Then placed the page to be scanned in the paper feeder, went to the scanner control panel, pressed the down arrow until I reached black and white PDF and then pressed the forward arrow icon.The document was physically scanned and the progress was shown on the PC screen. I am a bit disappointed that documents and photos cannot be scanned directly to an external storage device like jump drives, hard drives, etc. That would be beneficial from both a security standpoint to avoid exposing the data outside of the scanner and also convenience.

Created a custom app to scan and then print it automatically in another building.

The quality is good. Difficult to set up. The scan resolution could be better. It does have a fast response time. It is more of a business machine.

On first opening of the box, I was very impressed with the build quality of the Alaris S2040. It was solid and compact. It assembles very easily. I had high hopes for it. That was where the love affair ended.The scanner comes with a CD with all the drivers and software on it. However, you are directed to the website to download the latest version. The scanning software is called Capture Pro (Limited Edition). It is going to interface with the scanner to do your scans. During installation of the software, I received a message telling me that "Microsoft visual C++ 2017 Redistributing Pack(x86) must be installed". What? Ok. I said yes. Two seconds later it said, "FAIL to install- Abort or Retry or Continue". What failed, exactly? I hit retry several times to no avail. Finally, I checked to see if the Microsoft Visual C++ was installed on my computer in "programs". Turns out it had always been installed. It is part of a package that comes with your Windows Updates, which I do regularly. Ugh.After of going through this installation circus, I just let the Capture Pro LE continue to install, regardless of what it was asking for. After starting Capture Pro up it seemed to run fine! That is just poor programming right there. The programmer did not bother to check that Visual C++ was already installed on the PC and to report it as such. Ugh.Then on to another piece of software called SmartTouch which needs to be downloaded and installed. Why can't all the software be installed in one package? Anyway, SmartTouch is designed to allow you to set shortcuts to scanning jobs to run directly off the physical scanner console LED menu and on the PC. After installation I checked the Windows start list and there it was. When I clicked on it -nothing. After searching all over the PC, I find that the software runs from the right most portion of the taskbar where all those tiny icons reside. It can't even run in a full window! Should I really have to dig for mini popup dialog box to make my settings or run a shortcut? Are you serious, Alaris? I later confirmed this with tech support and it's true.I went to look for the shortcuts (there are about 9 pre-defined ones in SmartTouch - many with weird non-descriptive names like "custom color PDF") that are supposed to be available on the scanner console. Nothing. No shortcuts. Reinstall the SmartTouch software. I see the preset names flash up on the LED of the scanner for a second, but disappear. No shortcuts for me. I upgraded the scanner firmware. Nothing. Ugh.Now it's time to do some scanning with the Capture Pro LE software. Talk about complicated. There is no way that you can' just start scanning. You are confronted with dialog boxes, menus, sub-menus, sub-menus of sub-menus, multiple tabs, jobs, batches, options everywhere. In fact, the Capture Pro "quick start menu" is disabled in this limited edition version! Shouldn't that be exactly what IS in the LE version?I spent the entire day trying to learn this software! The help menus are mostly terrible, often merely reiterating what description label on the menu in the software. There are PDF's (LONG PDF's!) on the company website for this scanner - many of them! Each one describes a different aspect of the scanner.By the way, Capture Pro LE has no document management capability. When you scan, the scans end up in a Windows folder with no way to search for it by keyword metadata later. Also, Capture Pro LE doesn’t allow you to put keywords into the PDF metadata for use in another document management program like PaperPort 14.5 (which I have). It's disabled. You have to upgrade to the Capture PRO regular edition for that. Not doing that. EVER.You can set up the software to prompt the user to input a filename of your choosing after a scan, but it is not straightforward, what so ever. Filenames can be set to use built-in formulas, like dates, times and batch numbers, etc. However, there is no capability to embed a space or, indeed any other separator, into the filename so you are left with a long string of characters which are very difficult to read (for example dates would look like 012020201.pdf. That is the date 1-20-2020 with batch number 1).Regarding the scanner, it scans very fast (compared with an all-in-one printer) with very good clarity. It does not jam easily. Even papers that have uneven or torn sides pull into the scanner very straight. It can scan both sides of a document at once, which is be a big time saver compared to using a printer/scanner where you have to turn the document over and scan again.I'm going to avoid all this idiotic software and use the Alaris S2040 scanner with PaperPort. Unfortunately, you still need to use the S2040 TWAIN driver (actually, there are several drivers installed for this scanner and even different versions of a similar scanner, which makes for even more confusion!) for the Alaris scanner. This pops up in PaperPort before you scan to view settings. Some settings don't stick when you make them in Paperport (like resolution) or just don't exist (like multiple page vs. single scan settings). I'm still trying to figure out how to get the scanner to STOP making multiple page PDF's from within PaperPort.Unfortunately, I can't recommend this scanner due to poor implementation of the software.