Hand-held scanners were once sold as an alternative to very
expensive flatbed scanners. I have not seen any in about five
years, since flatbed scanners have become inexpensive.
I wouldn't bother with a hand-held scanner even if they were still
available today. You end up having to stitch together the separate
scans or hope the software does it correctly. For the bulk of carrying
a think hand-held scanner, I'd rather get a skinny Canon LiDE 60 flatbed
that can slide into one of the sleeves in my laptop's carrying case, if
I really need to tote it around (for at home, it goes into the center
drawer of my desk to keep desktop space free). It is, however, probably
3 times the weight at 4 lbs. than for a hand-held (the LiDE 25 is 1/2
pound lighter) but thinner (no bulge) and much easier to use. If I want
to scan a page, just take off the lid and press down on a page in a book
too thick to slide under the lid. My recollection of the lighter-weight
hand-helds was they they had the durability of a cereal box prize: use
once well, thereafter loose or broken, especially if you go toting it
around.
There were the scanner pens, like at
http://www.provantage.com/wizcom-qle1000~7WIZC00W.htm. Yeah, scan a
character at a time and only in a straight line (well, as straight as
you could draw). Of course, forget trying to accurately scan in an
image since you would be wandering all over the place trying to draw
straight lines across but spaced properly apart. And the text that you
scan in is one super long line without any of the original formatting.
