Battery-powered portable scanner, comprising: a scanning unit for scanning documents and forming digital representations thereof; a processor, communicatively connected to the scanning unit and provided for controlling the scanning operation; at least a first embedded storage capabilities, each of which is communicatively connected to the processor and each of which comprises either an internal memory for internally storing the digital representations or a communication link to an external storage medium for externally storing the digital representations. The processor is provided for enabling autonomous operation without connection to a terminal. The processor may be provided with an embedded routing application which is provided for routing the digital representations to a predetermined selection among the embedded storage capabilities.