Canon Canoscan Lide 300 Scanner (PDF, AUTOSCAN, Copy, Send)

As an artist, I have been meaning to find myself a nice flatbed scanner for art purposes, scanning sketches or what have you, but found myself procrastinating until I could devote time to really look at reviews and figure out a high quality, high end scanner. I found myself in a position recently that I needed to manually sign some documents and get them to where they needed to be by the next day, but my car was in the shop. I thought maybe one of those portable wand style scanners might be good, and I could use it also to scan receipts, but they are so expensive, and I needed some thing that would be delivered the next morning. What came up was the Cannon LIDE 300, which would be delivered between four and eight in the morning, and this was perfect—I could sign the documents, scan them and upload. And I would also have a nice inexpensive scanner for things. I was looking for something that would be an overnight delivery, and dare I say, on the “cheaper” side and this fit the bill. This printer far exceeded my expectations. I realized with the first scan that this little machine was way more useful, and of a higher quality than its price would suggest. Inexpensive, yes, but by no means a cheap piece of equipment. I am on an older OS Mac, so I was worried I would not find some thing that would be compatible with my system, but in reading the reviews, it looked like the scanner would work—and there were some very helpful reviews on how to use the scanner without having to download any software for Mac. It was pretty much ready to go straight out of the box, plug into your computer, go to system preferences under “printers and scanners”, hit the plus sign and you can add this scanner. Use the “printers and scanners” window to access the scanner—just hit the “open scanner” button and it will give you the scanner “user” window. It starts immediately with an overview scan and from there you can change the resolution, the size, rotation angle, even the format —say PDF or JPG. You can even do image correction with brightness and contrast. It’s pretty intuitive —all you really need to do is play around with that scanner window for a few minutes and do some test scans and you’ll see exactly where you’re at. For each new page/item that you scan you need to close the scanner window, go back to the “printers and scanners” window and hit the “open scanner” button again… There may be a way for it to auto detect when you put a new page in the scanner, but I have not figured that out… Maybe I should take a look at the manual, which is still in its plastic bag… L O L. There is a “combine into single document” option, but I chose to just do separate PDFs, and then combined them in Acrobat. And it worked out great. The quality was fantastic! And the color 300 dpi test scans I did on some color items were phenomenal, and when you enlarge them up and look at the detail, I was just blown away… Much higher quality than I expected, and I’m starting to think maybe I don’t need a higher end scanner. As I said, I bought it as an emergency measure, but now I find myself with quite a useful, high-end (in my eyes), and inexpensive little scanner. I will probably be saying quite often “how did I ever live without this”… And again I’ll mention the price is right on point, pretty inexpensive for the quality that I’m seeing, and I deal with resolution/dpi levels In my job as an artist… If you need additional information, go in under the (Amazon) reviews for this scanner and type in Mac in the search window—that was very helpful for me in making my decision to buy this scanner… The information I ultimately used for how to access the scanner without software was from one of those reviews. The scanner worked with the cable that came with it, and in less than 10 minutes I was scanning… No download of software needed for now, but I might check that out in the future. I thought this review might be helpful for others who are on an older system Mac… Sometimes it’s really hard to find useful information on products, regarding compatibility with the older systems…For reference I am on Mac, Mojave 10.14.6. Because yes, sometimes the newer OS does not always equal the best. I will say, with the positive experience of this little inexpensive model scanner, I will upgrade to another Cannon scanner, when and if needed. That’s how strongly I feel about this scanner. PS the scanner does have copy, scan/auto send as part of its functions (buttons), but I’m guessing you probably would need to download some software for those functions. As noted, this was a quick solution for some “emergency” scans, and this device was perfect! I am looking forward to seeing what else this scanner can do.

Easy to use, great value - this is the perfect scanner for daily use. Quick scans, accurate colors and fits nicely on my desk.

After about 3 or 4 years of yeoman's service, my Canon CanoScanner LIDE 110 gave out, and since the LIDE 110 is no longer available, I bought the LIDE 300. It is essentially the same machine, as far as I can tell - - a basic flatbed scanner. Also has the same 4 shortcut buttons: Scan and create PDF file; Copy and print; Copy and send as email; and Autoscan. I have Windows 7. The scanner comes with a CD for installation, but I downloaded the setup file from the Canon website noted in the installation instructions. On-screen instructions were clear and the installation went smoothly. Be forewarned -- the final setup step takes close to 10 minutes, and during that time, there is nothing on the screen to indicate that the installation is still progressing and is not just hung up. Don't hit the cancel button -- just be patient. Also, don't get flustered by another idiosyncrasy. Each time you connect the scanner to your computer, nothing happens for about 3 seconds. Then the machine wakes up and scrolls a very short distance for about 3 seconds. And after that little "dance", you're ready to scan. If you try to scan before then, you get a "Cannot detect scanner" message. The actual scan is a little faster than the old LIDE 110 -- about 8 seconds for a full scan. Colors come out pretty good (see sample). Only complaints I have are: (1) it's a little harder to plug in the USB cable into the LIDE 300, because the terminal is recessed slightly into the machine, so you sometimes have to fiddle with the cord for a bit before you manage to plug it in, and (2) just like for the old LIDE 110, also for the LIDE 300 you cannot remove the lid in order to scan thick books, or books that are too large to fit on the glass. The first time I used my old LIDE 110 to scan a big book, the cheap plastic socket that holds one end of the lid hinge snapped. At first I was miffed, but then I realized that it was a big advantage, because from then on, I could just lift the lid out of the hinge sockets whenever I had to scan a book. I think on my new LIDE 300, I'm going to use a hot soldering iron and purposely cut open one of the plastic hinge sockets, and solve the problem the same way. Maybe Canon will wake up before I buy the next version, because it wouldn't take much engineering prowess to design a removable lid. All in all, this LIDE 300 seems to be a good scanner. If it serves me for at least 3 or 4 years, I will be pleased with my investment.

Very pleased for a low end, no frills scanner. It’s slow. You’re not going to blast through mountains of items waiting to be scanned. And its options with file immediately afterwards is limited to ultra basic functions.

The CANON Lide 300 is a good scanner. It is not as convenient as the Lide 220 that I just wore out and was an excellent scanner but it will get the job done. The Lide 220 had a 'quick menu' that stayed on my screen and controlled the scanner. For some unknown reason, CANON ditched it in favor of the IJ scan Utility which sucks but works ... and I'm sure I will get used to it over time. Listen up Canon, when you have a good item, don't trash it. Shipping was excellent and packaging was very secure and everything arrived in excellent shape. The Lide 300 scan quality is actually quite good although I only rated it 4 star because the instructions are really bad and incomplete. If I didn't already have a Canon Lide 220 I would still be trying to figure it out. Yes, I actually recommend the Lide 300 and once you get used to it, the quality if high, scans in color & b/w, and should last a good while so it is well worth the money. EDIT: Revise my comments after owning it for 10 days. What a piece of junk. I owned a Canon Lide 220 for over a decade with zero problems and it was always ready to provide quality copies. I've owned this Canon Lide 300 for 10 days and I've only been able to make 3 copies ... every other time I get error messages telling me the scanner is busy and to turn it off then turn it on again. Great, considering there is no way to turn it off or on. How does Canon even stay in business making junk such as this Canon Lide 300. Failure 97% of the time. The only way I can make a copy is to delete all of the software that is downloaded during the setup, then reload the settings .... then I am allowed to scan one document before it fails again. Canon, SHAME ON YOU!!!!!

Got this to scan watercolor paintings. Biggest size paper that I use is 9x12, and though the scanning area is ever so slightly too small for the paper itself, the paintings I make have a pretty substantial border of negative space, so it's fine for my purposes. It's lightweight and it fits perfectly on the shelves built into my desk. First-time setup was a breeze. I just downloaded the driver from the website and installed it and let the setup wizard do its thing. It also comes with a CD to install the driver if that's more your speed. It doesn't have an on/off switch, it's just on and ready to go when you plug it into your computer via USB. To scan, you can either open up the application that comes with the driver, Canon IJ Scan Utility (name included in this review because I may or may not have breezed past the part where it installed it; if it mentioned it then it was easy to miss) or you can just press a button on the side of the scanner. It saves what it scans as either a PDF or a JPG to your documents folder automatically, though you can change where it saves your scans in IJ Scan Utility's settings. It's quick and no-fuss. If what you're scanning is smaller than the total scan area (like my 6x6 papers, which I also tested) it automatically crops that for you, which is nice. Images saved by the scanner are good quality and save at 2504 x 3372 px and 300 DPI. The scanner washes out the colors somewhat, making them less vibrant than what they look like in real life, though this can easily be edited in your image editing or illustration software of choice (in my case that's Clip Studio Paint) by fussing with the tone curve a bit. Not really a concern if you're using this to scan documents or books, though. All in all, pretty good budget scanner. If you need something that does simple scanning work and you're not willing to drop more than a hundred dollars, it's a good buy.

I don't normally leave feedback if the product does what it's advertised to do, but I felt compelled to write this review because this little scanner is a game changer if you need to scan old family photos (like me). I've spent a lot of time at Walmart scanning photos over the years and not only does this scanner do the same thing, it is so much faster, and needless to say, much more convenient and more cost effective (saving $.25 per scan). My only regret is not finding this scanner sooner.

This little scanner is quote the workhorse. When I got it I sat down and scanned about 3500 documents - some text, some photos. Never a glitch. And the results are nice. Now I didn't expect this given the price, but it certainly exceed my expectations. I know high end scanners, I used them for a living and most scanners I used cost several thousand dollars. Does this inexpensive little Canon beat those? No, not at all. But it does very well on both text documents and photos. The bulk of my scanning was black and white 8x10 photos from the 1950-1970s. The Lide 300 captured all there was to get, no problem with shadows, no blown out highlights. I scanned the 8x10s at 400 dpi and they look great. I experimented with 600 dpi, but the difference in detail was so slight that it wasn't worth it. At 600 dpi 100% zoom there was a tiny bit more detail than at 400dpi, but mostly it was just more grain. It felt like I had reached the limit of what the prints had to offer. Anything smaller than 8x10 I scanned at 600dpi, just for sake of it. Color photos were nice too, even the faded ones. Printed test of course was clean and crisp. Software: I used the included Canon software 90% of the time, but also scanned a lot of pages with Adobe Acrobat and some with Photoshop. No problems at all. The Canon software is very basic looking, but actually has all the adjustments and settings I needed. Even for difficult scans with low contrast or color backgrounds, there was always either a basic or advanced setting that worked. The software interface can be a bit clunky in places, but you get used to it. Take some time and try the different settings, you can even customize them. Overall I am amazed at what Canon can do in a sub $60 USB powered scanner. Yes, it is noisy, especially on fast scans. But you get used to it. And for the price and the quality, I don't mind the noise.

Llegó en buen estado. Simple de instalar siguiendo las instrucciones del manual. Escaneé un manual de 40 páginas sin problemas. Ese va a ser mi uso primario, digitalizar textos, recibos y manuales

Very simple to use. Quite sturdy too. I recommend this for all scanning needs at home

Yeah, just in case some other guy is searching for a scanner that can take 9" x 12" and shops fast, this is a basic letter scanner, that can go up to A4. Just like i had. I personnaly don't care at all about the scanner's dimensions, what i want to know i the size of documents it can process. yay, got 2 scanners exactly same size from 2 brands. haven't tried it, i guess it works as good as my previous one... but i'll have to keep doing 4 scans to get a full 9x12 artwork digitalized. bleh. EDIT: it does scan a lot better than my previous, more focused and sharp, less blasted, and lot less noisy. So not 9x12 but still a good improvement

I used a older version of Canon scanner for 10 years without any issue. Then I bought Lide 400 and it had a huge issue with connecting to my pc. Had to return it. I bought this Lide 300 as a last try and it works like a charm. Very fast and pretty decent scanning. No hassle. Happy with this one.

Comprei para digitalizar fotos antigas. Cumpre bem a função. Achei que trabalha rápido. Fácil de instalar no computador.