HAND-HELD SCANNERS Easy-to-wield DocuPen ends search

The $200 device solves the usual problems.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
The quest for a practical handheld scanner has been frustrating.
The versions we've sampled over the past few years have all felt like grabbing onto an eggplant. Their sheer bulk made them hard to control as we ran the scanning head across each line of text. Inevitably, a wobbly hand produced garbled digital copy.
The design of models such as the IRISPen Executive ($199; www.irisusa.com), which had to be tethered to a PC or Mac, seemed silly when a good, cheap flatbed scanner sat just across the desk.
Other handheld scanners that worked without cables -- such as WizCom Technology's QuickLink Pen ($189; www.wizcomtech.com) -- couldn't record pictures, charts or other graphics. That seemed odd, given that these things are supposed to be ideal for students, lawyers, doctors and other professionals.
At last!
Planon System Solutions has finally solved most of the problems inherent to the genre. The company's $200 DocuPen makes it easy to scan full pages, including graphics.
The 8-inch-long wand, which looks a little like a windshield wiper blade, is only 2 ounces and easy to wield. Rather than scan line by line, the DocuPen is turned horizontally across a page, then dragged top to bottom in 4 seconds.
The DocuPen, which needs no cord for scanning, operates on batteries and can store up to 100 pages in its 2 megabytes of Flash memory. It then easily dumps its cache into a PC via the included USB or serial cable.
Best of all, its operation is a no-brainer. The wand has only one button. You push it to start a scan, and it automatically shuts off at the end of the page.
Resolution settings
The button is also used to toggle back and forth between the DocuPen's two resolution settings. And four small lights give you other vital information -- whether a scan was made too fast, what resolution the device is using and whether the scan has been successfully saved.
The metallic silver DocuPen exudes class. It even has a leather case.
Better yet, it comes with the latest edition of the respected PaperPort scan manager, which lets you download images, then drag and drop them into Word, e-mail, fax, spreadsheets and other applications.
The optical character reading, or OCR, turns scanned text into type about as well as other handy scanners, which is to say it's glitchy. But that's a trait of most scanners, handheld or stationary.
All told, the DocuPen package is well worth its $200 price tag compared with the alternatives. Finally, the quest is over.