I’ve had many varieties of scanners in the past, but none have been as versatile as the CZUR Aura. It seems they have thought of everything to make scanning a multitude of objects easy and straightforward. The results of the scanning process are stored as .jpeg files which can be further saved in various formats including .pdf’s. the overhead and indirect lighting illuminate the subject properly depending on the finish of the item being scanned. Finger cots are included to assist in scanning bound items. It appears that nothing has been left to chance. If you need to scan docs and photos, this is for you...

The best scanner I've ever owned. Although it does not integrate with Apple's hardware directly in System Settings, the application works flawlessly and has a very nice software interface. It is FAST and ACCURATE... beyond what I was expecting. It has a very sleek look (even doubles as a desk lamp) and in good lighting conditions provides an excellent scan of paper and books alike. With poor lighting conditions, it still does a nice job. I am visually impaired and use the CZUR Aura to prepare music for transfer to my iPad for easier viewability. This has sped up my process significantly. I'm a fan!

Primero deben instalar el software y conectar el escaner a la computadora. Que no les pase como a mí, que no encendía el escaner, y ya estaba conectado a corriente, llegué a pensar que no funcionaba.

I had some skepticism when I first ordered this. I was copying yearbooks and scrapbooks into my computer using a flatbed scanner, as I figured that my children and grandchildren would just throw them away after I was gone. I couldn’t be sure about that but considering their lack of interest in looking at these old books, I figured that it was a strong possibility. Anyway, I was scanning each page of a yearbook into a flatbed scanner, which was tedious, and I thought to myself there must be a better way of doing this. So I went online, and saw the Czur device, and I thought, “well for $300. You can’t go too wrong”. I ordered it, and set it up, which was easy.. The documentation that comes with the device is pretty sparse, but their are plenty of online tutorials and I quickly started using it. After an half hour of experimenting, I found that I could copy extensive year books in less than five minutes. It scans them into JPG format, and then converts them into a PDF, tiff, word document, searchable PDF, and some other formats depending on your preference. You can use a foot pedal, or switch on the automatic page turning recognition for scanning, either one worked fairly well for me, but I found that I needed to use the finger cots because some of the books were quite curved and I needed the foot pedal for those. I’m old, so , as mentioned, I had to go online to look at the video tutorials on how to use the finger cot, but once I did, it was very straightforward. Scanning takes only a second or two for each page and it can preserve them as I said, in any format you want, but I use the high-quality PDF, My yearbooks have a lot of photographs as of course, do the picture scrapbooks (which are mostly photographs) with some writing on them, but the device copied them faithfully. Naturally, for the photo scrapbooks, you don’t get the same picture quality as you would with a dedicated photo scanner like the Epson FF – 680, but you don’t have to take the pictures out of the scrapbook with the Czur. Most of the time I had to use the side lamps to copy the photo Books, as most of the pages were laminated or had a plastic cover sheet which creates a glare when the overhead lamp is on., When you turn on the device, the default scanning lamp is on the arm of the scanner. Those are easily turned off by touching the button on th back where the side lights are attached and that turns them off and the side lights on which reduces glare. The quality of the pictures are very good, as I mentioned, and if you don’t want to enlarge the scans to make a poster or something, then they are quite acceptable. All in all, this is a tremendous timesaver over a flatbed scanner, and I highly recommend it for people who want to archive their old documents, yearbooks, or scrapbooks.

I bought this scanner to help with my genealogy research. I often go to libraries/archives and use my phone to take pictures, so I wanted a scanner that was portable and would be allowed at those places (i.e. wouldn't damage old books/documents by pressing them onto a flatbed). I had been using my phone, but I don't like the disadvantages (it doesn't always take the best photo, and I hate the auto file naming, so you have to later figure out what you've got) so I was ready for something new. I'll review the scanner itself separately from the software.The Scanner (5 stars)The scanner does a high-quality job on scans of most documents and books.It's super easy to set up - just plug in the cords and go. It does need to be plugged into a wall outlet.I had no problem laying out the mat and having it stay flat which another reviewer complained about. I simply rolled the mat in the opposite direction, then laid it out on the table.The scanner is light-weight, so will be easy to transport to archives and libraries.The foot pedal is helpful for pressing "scan" when holding a book open. It has a felt-like bottom, so it doesn't slide on wooden floors. It's not a required piece of the scanner - you can use the scanner without the foot pedal.When scanning glossy pages (like those in page protectors) or photos, the side lights are a must. Without the sidelights, the top light reflects and you get a huge glare in the middle of the page. Using the sidelights mainly eliminates that glare. You do still need to check the positioning of the page, though, because a reflection of the lights themselves can be seen if you're not careful. The side lights were one of the reasons I picked this model.I like the way the camera arm folds into the center of two upright supports. It'll be perfect for looping my Kensington lock through and locking the scanner with my computer in case I need to step away from a library table for a few minutes. This was another reason I picked this model.The scanner software does a fair job of eliminating the cots from a page. However, just be aware that it doesn't work perfectly in all cases. One of the books I scanned has a flower border on many of its pages. The cots were automatically blurred out but the software obviously can't reconstruct what was under them. But it worked better than I expected on that book.The Software (4 stars)The installation was easy. If you provide your email address, you are provided a link to tutorials to help learn to use the software. For the most part though, the software is simple enough to use without needing them. The FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City provides CZUR scanners, so if you've been there, the software will feel familiar.When scanning, you have the option to choose single pages, facing pages (like a book), manual selection (i.e. choose which portion of the page you want scanned), or combine sides (used for IDs to combine both images onto one sheet of paper). I haven't used the combine sides option, but the others all work great.The software does a fair job of OCR - although, it had trouble reproducing an 1990s-era computer printout which was justified into Word. The large spaces between words seemed to give it some trouble. The same printout, when exported as a Searchable PDF allows search as you would expect, so it was the layout that was the problem, not the OCR. I was able to load in pictures of a multi-page document that I had taken on my phone and the OCR did a fantastic job given the pages weren't overly straight, and some were skewed quite a bit.There are several options that you can perform on one or multiple images - rotate, crop, rename. You can also adjust the contrast, sharpness, and modify the color settings.You can load in a folder of images (even if not scanned by the scanner) and can use the software to manipulate them and export them. I've done this on some scans made on my phone. It's also nice because you can scan now, export later.Some software drawbacks (and why I only give it 4 stars)When scanning multiple books / documents, you can choose which images you want exported - either "all" or a selection. If I'm scanning large documents or a chapter of a book, I'd rather each get their own folder. The only way I've found to do that is to shut the software down and restart.The software uses its own style of UI (i.e. different look-and-feel from Windows / Mac). For pop-up windows, you need to be aware of which button is the default. For example, when prompted to overwrite a file, "cancel" is the default, but in other cases, "continue" is the default. In all cases the continue button is the one that appears "highlighted" (it's blue). So, hitting may not be what you want, using the mouse is the best way to make sure you are selecting the correct button.There doesn't seem to be a way to rearrange images in the viewer. You can do so right before you export (you need to click the "Show Sort window" box). This is a bit clunky if you have a large book - the window is of a set size, and is hard to read page numbers in it. And the software doesn't remember the order, so if you want to produce both a pdf and a word document, you have to redo the sort. On the plus side, this is mainly just a limitation for documents scanned previously. If you are in the process of scanning a book (or have just finished), you should double-check each page. For pages that were not scanned well, or accidently skipped, you can use the "Rep" to replace the image or "Ins" to insert an image. This means that you really shouldn't need to rearrange the pages right before exporting.

El scanner se ha utilizado para digitalizar documentos y libros, los primeros muy bien, los segundos también, dependiendo del tipo de libro, en libros grandes no tiene dificultad, en libros pequeños de más de 100 pp. es muy difícil mantenerlos abiertos, podría mejorar la técnica.Sin embargo lo recomiendo ampliamente porque cumple su función, lo he comenzado a usar y ya me ha dado utilidad, tarda sólo unos 2 o 3 segundos para ver la imagen muy nítida en la PC o laptop. Si quisiéramos mejorar pediríamos una funda para mantenerlo en desuso.

Overall, this scanner is really good. If you are scanning text only books in b&w the results will be amazing. if you are scanning in color then expect mediocre, but still very acceptable, results. After scanning 22 books I believe this scanner is well worth the price.This book scanner excels in a few ways:1. Ease of use. I found no difficulty in setting up the hardware and using the software. The user face is easy to learn and reliable.2. Amazing scans for text only books. The scans of pages with only text (in b&w mode) are top tier. They flatten well and appear as if they where originally typed in word document or pdf.3. OCR works very well. With the OCR feature I was able to create searchable and reliable pdfs.4. Good Image capture. While the images captured on color mode look alot more like traditional scanned items, or just like pictures in general, this product does a good job of capturing and compiling them.Even so there are some drawbacks to this product:1. The scanner sometimes has issues with lighting large pages. This is for glossy pages while using the attachable extra light.2. In color mode, the scanner often cannot pick up large dark pictures. Or smaller dark colored pictures. These are turned into a cut off scan or a black silhouette. Sometimes, if you have a large single tone image (i find red to be the most problematic), the flattening and page capture features will fail.3. OCR pdfs take a long time to compile. While the benefit is great, i would still like to see faster compile times.4. In color mode, the scanner will pick up the included yellow page holders as they are thought to be part of an image.