Laptops, Wi-Fi, and cell phones have brought freedom from drab desks and claustro­phobic cubicles — but many people remain slaves to paper. Printed pages, scribbled notes, and snail mail pile up, slip between cracks, absorb cof­fee spills, and stubbornly resist integra­tion with digital workflow. Happily, lib­eration is at hand, thanks to the portable document scanner.

If you haven’t taken a close look at the latest portable scanners, you may be surprised to find that many are easy to use, loaded with productivity features, and compact enough to slip into a brief­case or laptop bag. They make it simpler than ever to convert paper documents to a form you can edit and distribute to co-workers, friends, and family — and do it from almost anywhere.

The best portable scanners translate documents directly into file formats supported by popular applications. They handle a variety of paper sizes and thicknesses, and they’re able to com­municate directly with document stor­age and management services in the Internet cloud. There are lots of great models on the market, but here are five features you won’t want to do without:

Scan to the cloud

1. The ability to transmit a scanner’s output directly to the Internet makes it easy to access, share, and collaborate on paperwork and photos from work, home, or on the road. The Fujitsu ScanSnap S1100, for instance, lets you scan to email, on­line services such as Google Docs and Apple’s MobileMe (Mac version only), and SharePoint (PC version only), as well as Evernote, an application that lets you save, organize, and share your work from a variety of home, office, and mo­bile platforms.

Scan to popular file formats

1. The ability to transform pa­per documents into editable, searchable digital file means instant productivity. It makes scanner output immediately useful, whatever the task at hand. Look for a model that can output to PDF, JPEG, Microsoft Word (.doc), and Excel (.xls) formats.

Smart scanning of business cards

1. Business cards make a haphazard record of important information, easily lost and difficult to keep organized. Look for a scanner that imports them directly to your address book or spreadsheet of choice. Connected to a Windows computer, the ScanSnap S1100 automatically sends business card or receipt data to Outlook, Excel, Act!, and other common contact management pro­grams. Mac users can import directly to Address Book and Entourage.

Automatic settings

1. There’s no need to fiddle with settings while you’re shuffling a pile of receipts and brochures. The best scanners automatically recog­nize page size, orientation, and whether the document is color, black-and-white, or grayscale – and produce an electronic version that’s nearly identical.

Lightweight and compact

1. No matter how powerful a por­table scanner’s capabilities, it’s unlikely to earn a space next to your laptop if it feels like a brick in your bag. Look for a unit that’s light and tiny enough to fit in a small briefcase. Better yet, look for one that draws power from a USB cable attached to your laptop or desktop. That way, there’s no need to carry around a bulky power cord or heavy batteries.

A unit that incorporates these fea­tures will extend your reach and keep you productive wherever you are. The ScanSnap S1100 fits the bill: It’s incredibly quick and easy to use: just insert a page, hit the scan button, and when you’re done, choose “finish scanning.” It processes a color, letter-size sheet in about 7.5 seconds.

With these capabilities, you’ll always have access to the information you need, in a form you can make use of, and with all the options you need to distribute your work and collaborate with co-workers and friends. There has never been a better time to escape the tyranny of paper: You have nothing to lose but your file cabinet.

*Written by PC World