Hey there to all; I have not personally had the greatest success with handheld scanners and have tried a couple of brands. However, there are several models of flat bed scanners that are very small, very portable and do a terrific job. Traveled with a little one by Canon for a couple of years that was not much bigger than my ThinkPad and wasn't real expensive. Have used it to copy documents and many photographs with success. Just a thought. Fried it and now am hunting for another one to replace it that doesn't require a USB port and will use a parallel port... still looking. If your laptop is a model from the past year or two, it probably has a USB on it. Marilyn