This device is smaller than a paperback book (4.1 inches high, 5.5 inches long, 1.5 inches wide) and weighs just 12.5 ounces.  It can scan an entire page of text and images as fast as you can swipe it over the page. Once scanned, documents can be sent to a personal digital assistant (PDA), desktop computer, printer, or even a cell phone.

In the past month I've used a CapShare to not only scan standard text documents, but also newspaper and magazine articles, business cards, forms, expense receipts, and charts and graphs.  The scanning software is excellent and the optical character recognition (OCR) conversion is amazingly accurate. In fact, the entire process is so straightforward that it doesn't make sense not to have a CapShare.

How does it work?  Simply turn it on, lower the CapShare onto the item to be scanned and press the scan button.  For a standard-size page, place the CapShare on the upper left corner of the page, swipe it all the way to the bottom, move it over to the right, then swipe back up to the top in a "U" shaped movement over the entire document.  For non-standard documents, change to the "flip chart" or "graphics" settings on the tools button.

You may need to practice the first few times to see how much you need to overlap the downward and upward swipes in order to properly paste the pieces together.   It's typically one-half inch per pass on a standard 8 by 10 inch page and a bit more on larger pages, but once you've had some practice it's very easy to adjust.
 
Another advantage of the CapShare is that it's very fast. HP recommends a speed of 3 seconds to scan a standard page, but when using high-quality originals or copies it generally worked faster.  It will NOT, however, scan properly on uneven surfaces, so be sure to use a level surface to ensure an even swiping motion.

A few seconds after scanning, an image of your document will appear on the screen. The CapShare has four directional arrow buttons, which allow you to "view," "rotate," "send," or "delete" the document.  The tools button has "document capture" and "editing" utilities, and the help button even provides on-device assistance for many tasks.

Once saved, your document can be sent to a desktop computer using the special serial cable provided with the CapShare.  More impressively, it uses an infrared port for connecting to any Windows 95/98/NT or CE device as well as the Psion Series 5 and Nokia 9000i/9000il/9110 Communicator handheld devices. (Notably absent from the list is the Palm Pilot -- lack of compatibility with Palm devices is a serious drawback.)  The CapShare 920 also has support for both Serial Infrared (SIR) and the Fast Infrared (FIR), which are available on newer laptop PCs and printers.  SIR transfers data at 115 kilobits per second and takes 15 to 30 seconds per page, while FIR allows a transmission time of up to 4 megabytes per second, transferring a letter-size page in 5 to 15 seconds.  Multiple pages sent at one time will transmit faster over either IR format.

When sent to any Windows-based computer, the documents can be stored as portable document format (PDF) or tagged image file format (TIF) files.   Both file formats have their advantages -- PDF files allow easy e-mailing of the document to users who can then open it with Adobe Acrobat Reader, while TIF files are a better choice for use with graphics and OCR applications.

On a Windows CE device as well as the Psion or Nokia, the document is always transferred as a TIF file. For these users, HP offers a free version of it's JetSend for Windows CE software that allows users to receive, view, and annotate documents imported from CapShare. In addition, sending a document to a Nokia Communicator allows it to be wirelessly faxed or e-mailed anywhere in the world.

Included with each CapShare is a full version of Pagis Pro 2.0, the industry-leading document management software and OCR software from ScanSoft.  Pagis File Management uses Windows-style Explorer interface with full drag and drop capability. The OCR piece is ScanSoft Textbridge Pro and is remarkably accurate for such a small unit in a mobile environment.  An upgrade to Pagis Pro 3.0 with image editing, fuzzy-text searching, and visual bookmarks, is available for $69.00.

The CapShare 920 device comes with 4 megabytes of memory, which allows storage of approximately 50 letter-size documents in normal mode, 15 pages in graphics (high-quality) mode, or 150 pages of flip-chart data in compressed mode. Still, it would be helpful to have more memory for greater storage capacity, particularly if you upgrade to the Pagis Pro 3.0.  The device runs on two NiMH batteries (four are included), which are good for approximately 100 letter-sized, normal mode pages. Also included with the device are a compact NiMH battery charger, serial cable, capture-sleeve, soft cloth carrying pouch, user guide and a software CD.

HP marketing releases refer to the CapShare as  "the copier you take to the paper."  After using this remarkable device, attorneys on the road who handle high volumes of paper may find it invaluable.  Although the list price is a bit high at $499, I still rate the CapShare as a "must have" for the mobile practitioner.

Click here to view the CapShare's technical specifications.

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