KeyScan Document Scanner

The KeyScan scanner is conveniently built into a keyboard (and it's a decent keyboard as well, quiet and with a soft touch); but for the money, I think a compact scanner is a better deal. This scanner doesn't do duplex printing and I initially had problems with photo scanning because of dirt on the scanner lens. But if don't have a lot of heavy scanning jobs, you'll appreciate the compactness and zero footprint.

The KeyScan integrated document scanner fits in the back of a keyboard, meaning it is a scanner that truly has a zero footprint. In my tests it took about 12 seconds to scan a single document and then only a few seconds more to convert it to a different format (there are plenty of formats to choose from, including Microsoft Word, PDF, image files such as .bmp or .tif, and of course scanning directly to an e-mail attachment). All of these functions worked perfectly and quickly.

I did have some initial set-up issues since the included drivers are not compatible with a Vista 64-bit system; so if you've got a brand-new computer, this isn't the machine for you.

I initially had a problem with light streaks on scanned photos, which tech support and the user's manual noted could be the result of incorrect calibration of dirt on the scanner lens. Indeed, after the lens was cleaned and the unit recalibrated, the streaks in scanned photos disappeared.

The scanner offers an Autoscan mode in which you simply feed a document into the scanner and the software starts automatically, remembering your previously set defaults. That can be convenient if you have a lot to scan. But pages emerge from under the keyboard, which was a bit of a nuisance since my keyboard sits in a tray. Small photos, however, are conveniently reversed so they emerge at the top of the keyboard.

The included optical character recognition software worked very well; even a magazine ad that was mostly image came out perfectly (except that the image was streaked), with the words identified correctly and separated from the image when saved as a .doc file.