CanonOffice Products LiDE120 Document Scanner

This is a great little scanner for the price. For many years I've used a multifunction printer / scanner and they are great, especially if you need to scan 20 or 30 pages with the sheet feeder. The multifunctions are usually large and don't fit on your desk so using them involves getting up and going to the scanner. It's inconvenient to get up and go the printer for a one or two page scan and really inconvenient for a flatbed scan. As it happened, I needed to scan a lot of old photos and that would involve a lot of walking back and forth between my computer and the flatbed scanner on the printer. So, I looked around for a small inexpensive scanner to put right on my desk for this project. I found this little scanner and decided the quality (300 DPI for photos and documents) and price was acceptable for my purposes.Not only have I managed to scan more than 500 old photos for my project but I also find myself using this little scanner every day. I'm using it much more than I expected since it's so convenient. I really don't use the mutifunction scanner that much anymore unless I have a large sheet scan project.Here are the PRO's:1. As I said, it's really convenient right on my desk.2. Works great with Windows 7 and 10 and you can download the latest drivers3. Any application you have that utilizes a scanner will likely work with this scanner so you don't need to use the Canon software, just the drivers for this scanner. In addition to the Canon Software, I use ScanWiz or NAPS2 (donations software) for most document scans.4. For photos, I like the Canon Software that came with the scanner. I will agree the Image Garden, ScanGear, and IJ Scan programs are not that user-friendly. There are a lot of settings and like most graphic software, it just takes time to figure out how they work. My old photo scan project forced me to dig into the Canon software. It works very well but be patient.5. You can scan multiple photos on a single scan and have them automatically squared, cropped and make some basic image corrections.6. Powering the scanner using a single USB connection eliminates an extra power supply eliminating some wiring clutter, however, in the case of this scanner it can be a CON.Here are the CON's:1. Initially I had some instances of the scanner disconnecting from my desktop computer and I got a scanner not available message. I tried it with my laptop and kept getting a message to unlock the scanner even though the lock switch was in the unlock position. I noticed other users had the same problem. I searched the internet and found some fixes using a shorter USB wire or connecting the scanner to a powered hub. This indicated to me the scanner wasn't getting enough power from the USB port. I experimented and found the most effective solution was a relatively cheap USB 2.0 Y Cable for External Hard Drive - USB A to mini B. It's designed to increase the USB power needed for external hard drives but it works and provides the necessary power for this scanner. This cable connects to two USB ports (a minor CON since it ties up two of your USB ports) and draws power from both to increase the power available to the mini USB port on the scanner. This fix, a 1ft cable available from Amazon for under $5.00 works great. Just search Amazon for USB Y Cable for External Hard Drive - USB A to mini B. For this scanner, make sure you get the one for the USB A to mini B since the USB Y Cable is also available as a USB 2.0 with a micro-B and a USB 3.0 with a micro-B.2. I think Canon built too many options into the software included with this product. There should have been a quick and easy version for less technical users as well as the more complex version which was included.Since adding the USB Y Cable I haven't had any problems and the scanner works great. There would be a great many more positive reviews for this scanner if Canon had made consumers aware of this potential power problem in their troubleshooting or support for this product. Everything considered it's a great product and I highly recommend it.

Great product for a reasonable price. Hooked it into my iMac pro and it runs flawlessly from the Printers & Scanners set up. Its output is consistenly excellent either in black and white or in color. If you need to go flat-bed, this is the product for your desktop production.

Arrived yesterday and I immediately put it to work. I've been working on a family archiving project with thousands pre-digital photos. I was using an Epson Workforce, but after my 2nd one died in just as many years; I have decided I will never buy another Epson product again.So, rather than buy another $150 all in one; I decided I will just stick with my HP-1200 printer from 2001 that works better than any printer I've bought since 2001 and a cheap "disposable" scanner that won't make me cry when/if it fails.After reading through extensive reviews; I decided on this one for a couple reasons.1. No external power supply.2. It's a flatbed scanner3. It can scan up to 600dpi4. Price5. SizeNot having it's own power supply makes this thing super portable. I can plug it right into my laptop USB, do my scans, and then put it away with no hassle.Being a flatbed scanner; I can place multiple photos on the glass and scan them all at once. It does need to make a separate pass for each file; but at least I save on the "initial pass" that the scanner makes to identify how many things it's going to scan which saves a ton of time - especially when you consider I can put four photos on the glass at once. That's three "initial passes" the scanner doesn't have to make. The other advantage to a flatbed scanner is I don’t have to worry about it “eating” or “crinkling” my photos as it passes them over the rollers. And even better, my scans are perfectly straight 100% of the time (so far). Many of the reviews I read about the handheld or wand scanners had complaints about the scans being lopsided.What resolution to archive family photos is a hotly debated topic and will be a personal preference for most people. The important factors to be considered when deciding on the proper resolution to scan are:1. What are you ultimately going to do with the images after they are scanned?2. How much space do you have available for storage?3. How much time do you want to spend scanning?4. What is the quality of the original photos being scanned?Most of the stuff I'm scanning is from low/mid quality point and shoot 35mm and 110, and would never benefit from any resolution higher than 600. I scanned in a couple test photos at 300 and a couple at 600 and asked people's opinions when I had them blown up side-by-side on my 52" TV. It was unanimous that everyone could tell the difference between 300 and 600; but the difference was extremely small. But because there was a difference; I decided on 600, which doubles the amount of time it takes to scan and quadruples the file size. Right now I am scanning 4x6 photos and each file size is approx 1MB and it's taking approx 1 minute per photo start to finish, including initial pass, with two photos on the glass at once. At 300; the files sizes were approx 180kb and took roughly 25 seconds to scan. I have unlimited storage at roughly 12TB so I'm not at all concerned with file size. I was very pleased that some of the darker photos I scanned in resulted in a superior quality image than the original. The color was pulled out and brightened almost to the point I didn't recognize the photo, and I am not using any editing software yet.The scanner is plug and play - I did not even open the attached disc that was included. Warning – the included instructions are useless; however I ended up not needing them anyway. I am running Windows 10 which includes Microsoft Scanner and Fax software which is extremely simple and intuitive. Within 30 seconds I was able to create a "default scan profile" set at 600dpi and check the box that says "save each photo as a separate file". Now that I am set up; scanning is this:1. Replace the photos that were just scanned with new photos.2. Click Start Scan3. Hit EnterThat’s it – it’s 100% automatic otherwise.The only thing I would have liked to see improved with the WINDOWS software is an option to change the default destination; but there's no way to do it on an automatic feature so I just have to drop everything in the default which is Documents/Scans. Which is fine. The few minutes between photos allows me time to go in make my small changes. Again, this is very small complaint, but that complaint is with Microsoft and not Canon.There are absolutely NO indicator lights anywhere on the scanner. You don't know if it's done or what it's doing. When scaning though, the scan software keps me updated on the scan progress so it's not a big deal other than initial setup.When I first plugged the scanner in my USB 2.0 port; nothing happened. So I tried a different port and waited a little longer. I just need to be more patient. The second time; the driver utility started automatically after 15 seconds and took another 5-7 minutes to install. After the drivers were installed; I did get a pop up message stating the scanner could not be detected. I ignored the message and proceeded to scan just fine with no issues – can’t explain the message. In total I have scanned approximately 400 photos with only two minor issues. I had one photo taken on a hazy day and the top of the photo is all white from the white cloudy sky. The software cropped this out and I wasn't able to get it to ever scan it in - which is fine here since that doesn't add any value to the photo anyway. The second issue was two photos scanned in as a single file, on one occasion. I went back and rescanned a second time and it was fine. I have NOT had any problems with lines, blurs, or crooked or failed scans.The scanner is roughly the same size as my 17" Toshiba Laptop so it goes right in my bag with the laptop. It's small enough I can sit on my chair with my laptop without having to be at a desk.The scanner is super light and extremely noisy compared to my unreliable Epson. But – I’m scanning while I watch TV so the noise doesn’t bother me. It is not loud enough to interfere with low TV volume.One final note – Windows 10 actually has two scanner programs. The Scan “App” was kind of the default program and it seems to be made for Windows 10. This did not have the ability scan multiple photos at once and save them as separate files - it scans the whole glass as one sheet. This app also has a very poor file naming system – it names the files based on date, which is a problem for me when scanning so many photos on the same day. My scans were 20150919, 20150919(1), 20150919(2), etc. Personally, I do not like my photos named this way. Windows Fax and Scan allows you to scan multiple photos at one time and AUTOMATICALLY saves them as separate files – yes – it’s AUTOMATIC – nothing extra needs to be done. It also saves them as IMAGE, IMAGE 01, IMAGE 02, IMAGE 03. And if I go in and clear out the folder the scans were in, it will restart the file name sequence from the beginning.I have thousands of photos to scan so it will be interesting to see how this little guy holds up. I’ll try to update this in a few months.

I ordered this one in winter 2016. I feel like it's a ton of capability for a very low price. I had previously owned an HP flatpanel scanner, and it worked fine for many years. But it finally stopped working after 10 years or so. I shopped for the best replacement, and it seemed to be this product. I find the hardware is excellent, works like a top right out of the box. The software has quite a bit of capability, and after a brief familiarization effort, I found that it was easy to use and had all the capability that I need for my document scanning purposes. With the low price, I can't imagine a better computer appliance in this paperless age we live in to capture medical documents, tax documents, important papers and process visual data. You really can't beat the quality and capability for the price. Everyone should have one in their home office.