I am the Director of a County museum and I do a lot of scanning of old photos, documents and books. I was using the Fujitsu SV 600 scanner, but I had to spend countless hours manually correcting the location of the book corners and center after scanning. The CZUR ET 16 has changed all that! I am now able to scan books and the scanner software will automatically split the pages. It is very accurate and I have only had to manually correct a few pages in each book. The setup and firmware update were very simple and I have received quick responses from customer service via email for questions. I highly recommend this scanner!
This absolutely does what it claims to do, and substantially better than the Fujitsu (which I also own). Solid construction. The one con is the software which is clearly not designed for English-speakers. Both the cloud software and the local windows versions could use better localization. However, once you figure it out, the scanner is the best of the breed of flattening a scanned book. Great speed. I've been feeding the resulting scans into FineReader OCR Pro and sometimes using ScanTailor, depending on how well refined I want the final result to be.
Anyway, I strongly recommend it if you want to digitize a book with reasonable quality in a short time.
I am quite impressed with this scanner. I travel to another location half of the year and have to take my belongings with me so no room for books. I have a number of reference books that I frequently use which are not available in ebook form so they haven't been able to come along. This scanner is solving the problem. Customer support is really excellent. As another reviewer has stated, it does not scan glossy or semi-glossy pages without a reflective distortion but they are working on a fix for this and offered me free alternative lighting for those types of pages. I also received a response to a question in less than a day. The manual that comes with it, is pretty lean so I highly recommend that you watch their video before scanning the first time. You can find it on their website in the support section or by using a link in the software. The video walks you through most of the steps needed. The scanner is very well packaged and comes with both a foot pedal and a touch button. The pedal works great when scanning books since you will need both hands. There is a learning curve with books so pick a small book or manual initially to practice. It took me a couple of times to get positioning and the finger cots usage correct, but now my results are good. One thing not mentioned in the manual: If you make a bad scan of a page, click on it on the right side of the screen that shows a list of all of your current scans. A menu will appear below the name of that page. Click on "Re" which is short for rescan. You can then rescan the page and it will automatically replace the original image. This is also where you can delete the page by clicking "del" or insert another page by clicking "ins". I did find that no matter how careful I am with thumb cot placement when I'm scanning a 500 page book with a stiff spine which I've broken, pages will scan at an angle. There are options for correcting the pages but it requires editing each page. A bit tedious, but the end result is very nice so for me, it's well worth it. I used to have a flat bed book scanner which required laying each page of the book at the edge of the scanner. Compared to that, this scanner is amazing and very fast. I have scanned about 1500 pages so far and the program has never crashed. I haven't used the WIFI service and probably won't. I'm happy with using USB to laptop for scanning. There has been a recent firmware update which I needed to apply before using the program and there was a software update in mid-December which may have corrected some of it's previously reported issues. All in all, I am very pleased with my purchase.
After reading the reviews of the Fujitsu scansnap sv600, I decided to give this Czur scanner a try and I absolutely like it. Yes, it’s from China and the user manual is not in proper English, but the setup process was very simple and straight forward. The scanning software is also very simple with only three main operations, Scan, Archive, and Bulk, which are used in scanning the page, running OCR and processing the scanned ages in bulk. Without disassemble or roughly handle the book, scanning a thick book is just a matter of turning the pages with the book opened facing up, and the built-in software will correct and straighten the curved lines automatically, the result was pretty amazing. Compared to scan one page at a time facing down on a flatbed copy machine, this little handy scanner does the job much faster and easier and best of all there is no need to do any manual editing. So far I managed to scan over a dozen books without any problem. I haven’t tried the cloud scanning option yet, but already felt my money was well spent.
If anyone who needs to do some serious scanning, the Czur scanner is definitely a good choice and I highly recommend it.
I don't normally write reviews, but this product warrants positive feedback. It is simply one of the coolest things I have purchased online in the last few years. It totally works as advertised. I have read some of the negative reviews and I am not sure what those folks are doing that caused their respective problems. The packaging is great and the setup took me like 5 minutes (really that fast). I am using Windows 7 for this device so that may be something to pay attention too. I installed the software directly from the company's website rather than whatever was in the box. It all seems pretty simple to follow the quick setup guide and get started. For my purposes, I want a document/book scanner versus a picture scanner or something else that doesn't really seem to fit the design concept of this product. It's basically an overhead camera that takes pictures of whatever you lay down in front of it.
As far as how well the product works. I scanned 7 books today in less than 4 hours. For example (I timed it because I was blown away with the speed) I scanned a 194 page book in 22 minutes. What makes this device fast is that it scans first and then after you are done with the book, you can decide to OCR to pdf or word... or just keep the images. The ocr process obviously adds some time to the overall project time, but I'd say that book was completely saved in a word file within another 10 minutes. I also used the autoscan feature and it was perfect as well. With autoscan, I did a 300 page book and the software was intuitive enough to know when I had finally turned the page and got everything ready for the next scan/picture.
So at this point, I'd say this is a great product and great experience. If anything changes I'll update my review.
Feature Product
- Patented Flattening Laser-Based Image of Curved Book Page Technology: ET18 Pro emits 3 laser beams, forming horizontal laser lines on curved book page, and acquiring a 2D planar. By computing the the angles at the intersection of the laser beams and the scanning platform, a 3D spatial curve of the laser lines can be obtained. Finally flatten the 3D curved surface after pixel transformation to complete flattening of the book page.
- 18MP Sony Camera, Easy and Fast: Embedded 18MP Sony Camera and with the 1.5 S/P scanning speed, ET18 Pro can easily finish scanning a 300 page book within 10 min, which is 10 times faster than traditional scanner. Thanks to the Auto-Scan Tech, it is even easier to scan documents and books. All you need to do is just flipping pages. The foot pedal is also recommended as a way to trigger the scanner.
- A3 & A4 Applicable: ET18 Pro is friendly to both A3 & A4 Format materials, or any size in between. Perfect choice for exam papers, blueprints, magazines, catalogs, and even large books without a problem.
- Supplementary Lightning: 2 High-Quality supplementary lights are added to ET18 Pro, making it possible to scan glossy papers (recommend to turn off the overhead light, only use side lights).
- Life Free Powerful Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Software: Life-time FREE SOFTERWARE, able to read 187 languages, allowing you to edit your scanned materials right after scan (crop, adjust sharpness, contrast, thickness, etc). Any materials can be converted into EDITABLE PDF,WORD,TIFF and automatically stored. You can even use our SOFTWARE convert and edit imported document materials. For an open book, the software can automatically separate or combine the 2 open pages after scan
Description
ET18-P offers word-class performance for high digitization requirement organizations, designing for situations where efficiency and convenience are the top priority. Embrace one sleek and incredibly compact unit for all your document scanning needs: in colour, black & white or greyscale at swift speeds and faultless quality. Applied the breakthrough technology- 2nd Gen Laser Curve-Flattening, ET18-P provides tremendous curve page flattening ability and ultra fast (1.5s/p) scanning speed. Smart Combining and Separating pages at your disposal. For more information about "Patented Flattening Laser-Based Image of Curved Book Page Technology", refer to the Patent No:WO2017185407A1
I was looking for a smart scanner for a while, and found CZUR Scanner ET16 finally. That's an amazing product and totally meet my need. First, the package is good. There are 2 big boxes to protect the product, so you don't need to concern about receiving the defective item. Second, it's light and easy to use. Once you open the box, just plug in and experience it! Simple but professional! Third, I like the appearance. It looks like a lamp, even nicer than my old lamp, because it has a TFT screen. Also the Scanner has the similar function as lamp. Finally, the functions here are wonderful. It can erase the fingerprint and flatten the book curve automatically. I just need to turn the page and press the scan button or tread the pedal, personally I like the pedal, which is sooo convenient. Fantastic! Also, the OCR function is cool, which can recognize many languages and switch to PDF version fast. The most thing l like is wifi stored function. I can scan the book and store on the CZUR app automatically, which is very easy carry and read.
Anyway, I still exploring this scanner, which has more functions to try. But I can say it must be the best choice for you if you are looking for a smart Scanner. Like it:)
This double-side scanner is excellent, so is the customer service. All the questions have been solved with their help. You can also watch the videos on YouTube and CZUR website, giving a very good native English speaking about the features of CZUR software.
First time I used the ET16, I was surprised that a scanner can be such a convenient tool to scan books by just turning the pages. It scans them so fast and even hasn't missed a single one. Completely scanning over 2000 pages in less than an hour made me cry.
I have hundreds of books in need of scan, and functions of flatten curves, finger removal are smart and can process automatically. What’s more, it can easily turn the image format into word file which can be edited with OCR feature.
Well, during the scanning, I also realized that the scanner still has problem that the reflect of light will affect the image quality when scanning glossy papers or glaring magazine. But two LED lights in the packaging box are good help to solve it (Bravo!)
I can see they are still working on the software and hardware to improve user experience. All in all, I highly recommend this scanner to everyone who need to scan a lot of papers.
I got the ET16 Plus (with side lights & foot pedal), & SO GLAD I did! I could live without the side lights & foot pedal, but it's worth the splurge to get them for the added benefit.
It has a motion sensor so all you have to do is turn the page & when you stop moving, it takes the next scan, over & over. SO EASY! The auto-scanning is great ergonomically, though I must say that for a stiff book, the finger rings can get painful. They're a hard plastic which is designed great, but when repeating the action over 100 times for books, it requires some creative solutions. I'm looking into several ways & will try to remember to post after finding the best solutions.
If you use Acrobat as I have for years, you'll find the Czur OCR is eons superior for searchable PDFs. I just turned a 364-page book into a 7.6MB searchable PDF (about 5 minutes to render after scanning). Using the same files in Acrobat, it takes 10 times as long to process (50 minutes), the OCR is less than half as accurate (SEE SCREENSHOT), & the file size is about 8 times as big (56.4MB)!
Here's the coolest thing that I hope the company will improve upon: The box it comes in is all black. It even comes with a little box opener taped to the outside so it's easy to open. That same box opener can be used to separate the glued part of the boxing, which can then be turned into a little black "booth" or "dark room" so that ambient lighting is blocked. I needed this solution since I live in the Sunshine State & have windows EVERYWHERE. Using this little makeshift booth eliminates glare on glossy pages. And it can all fit nicely in a library cubicle, which I plan to do for day trips to archives where I must scan lots of ancient documents & books.
One thing I love is the option to change pages to B&W or color - before or after you scan. I needed to do this in a book that has lots of photos. The B&W pages are more like what you see on books.google.com, but the photos are too cartoonish outlines in that mode. So I did a mix. See my sample photo of the book with the computer screen of the final product where a B&W page is right next to a color page. The OCR is equally good for either mode.
If you browse my photos, you'll see I used a grease pencil on the base since I can never remember which way ON is without looking, which is hard to do once set up. This is great for antique books & for everyday documents.
I've only had this for a day, so I may have to update this review as I use it more. Assuming something doesn't break right away, I've played with it enough to declare it VERY USEFUL, a huge leap forward in technology. Perhaps even a 'revolution' in my way of life ;)
I read books from the 1800's that are long out of print, not available anywhere except maybe ONE lending library if I'm lucky. I also like to scan individual pages out of a thick music score when I'm traveling. Has worked well in both those cases on my test runs. In fact, scanning with this device has made easy what was before sometimes impossible. Seems like a great way to scan handwritten notes too, though I've not used it for that yet.
What I ESPECIALLY like:
- I can scan books, sheet music, etc that are lying flat on my desk. The 'autoscan' feature activates after pages have been flipped, so you can multitask and just flip pages when you're ready. It waits for you while you vacuum or whatever. I put a weight inside the 'thumb glove' to keep pages open while I'm away after flipping. Scan quality was excellent on all things I tried so far.
- When not in use, I now use the scanner as THE lamp for my desk area-- it illuminates my entire work space quite evenly. They even provided 2 additional USB-rechargeable portable LED desk lamps -- a MOST pleasant surprise -- better than any I've bought on the market.
- The OCR and PDF work sufficiently well for me. The page curvature elimination works very well also. The 'thumbprints' from holding the pages down sometimes don't get edited out completely; but this doesn't bother me too much. I might eventually find out what's wrong on those pages where it hasn't worked.
So I gave it 5 stars despite some 'rough edges' which are as follows:
- documentation is very minimal and incomplete, so you've got to figure a lot of stuff out on your own by just trying things.
- installing on windows requires running the app with admin privileges, a pain. They explicitly say in the provided documentation (such as it is) that it runs only under windows not MAC, but I haven't tried obtaining MAC Software which is rumored to be available online. I have computers that run everything, so I'm OK with using it on windows for now. Linux would be my #1 choice.
- GUI is very barebones and primitive, but gets the job done. I personally don't require a lot of polish in a GUI as long as I can do what I want.
- When OCR-ing a book, you get blocks of text interspersed with headers, which I suppose is to be expected. I'm after text and almost never care about photos. I'm a decent python programmer and so can post-process headers out. Also, I don't like how OCR goes to *.doc files by default; I usually prefer working with straight text in this context, and the intermediate 'doc' files will require some thought for use in batch processing.
All in all though, to sum up in one word: spectacular! Kudos to the developers.
As a PhD student, it's immensely helpful to digitize a book as a searchable PDF. It helps me find keywords quickly for faster research. That's the primary reason I bought the CZUR ET 16 Plus (mine has the side-lights). I've been using the big expensive fast scanners in the library, and they're great. But the CZUR is even faster, and its auto-correct function (straightening and flattening the image and eliminating 'thumbprints') is way better.
I just scanned a 180-page book in 10 minutes. The process of converting the pages to searchable PDF (which the software does on its own) took another 6 minutes. I wasn't rushing ... just taking my time.
For my purposes, this book scanner was an excellent purchase. If you have other purposes, your experience may be different. But I love this purchase; it was well worth the price.
I should note that the packaging is first class--blew me away. The manufacturer has clearly gone to great effort to create a first-class product in packaging, materials, construction, instructions, and software.
If I had to mention a weakness, I'd point to the side-light. It works great, but its connection to the main stem is not secure. If you bump the unit in the wrong direction, the side-light could easily fall out. From a manufacturing design standpoint, this could be easily fixed in future revisions of the product.
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