Canon R50 Document Scanner: Scan Business Documents in Seconds

VC: The media could not be loaded.  Short story:
The scanner software has a major bug/flaw. The user can scan as many pages as he/she wants, but the scanned images after #200 will not be viewable and editable in the software. When the user scrolls down to the thumbnail of image #201 ~ 202, the viewer will scroll itself up to image #1 (see attached video). In order to know what is being scanned, the user must first saved the first 200 images and restart the scanning process again for the next 200 images. I Will never pay for a 700 dollars high speed scanner to scan 100 pages (duplex) a time if I know this flaw in advance.

Long story:
I bought the Canon R50 high speed scanner to help a local non-profit organization to archive its 25 years of documents which is a massive project. I picked the faster, more expensive R50 instead of the R40, hoping extra money can speed up the process. I installed...

Canada on Dec 14, 2023

Jerry: Compact. Works fast. Not as easy as you would expect to set up but it got done.

Canada on Dec 08, 2023

Christine Teneyck: I work from home but scan large files daily, often 100+ pages per file. This scanner was easy to setup, doesn't take up a lot of desk space and is very fast. The quality of the scan is good and can be changed depending on how fast you need to scan and the size of the file you want. You can connect via wifi or usb, which is a nice feature when needed. It's also very light weight. Overall, this is a very good option.

United States on Sep 11, 2023

Riffy: No issues after all this while

United States on Jul 08, 2023

Jeff Sherwood: My wife has been using it to digitize all of the families' photos. What would normally take her about 8 hours, she can now do in one. Only thing is every time she tries to use, her computer doesn't recognize it and we have to play with the computer and the scanner to get them to work together, but that is probably just a problem on our end.

United States on May 18, 2021

GrkG: Pros:
1. Fast, efficient, reliable scanning with plenty of features/options.
2. Allows 'long' scans
3. Allows separating jobs with special pages in between (to be printed separately)

However:
1. Not as 'cloud-ready' as one may assume. The scanner ALWAYS needs to have a computer / app on and connected to it, to be able to scan. Of course, once this is a requirement, what is the use in scanning to any cloud service since you can scan to PC and upload as needed.
2. Interface is not very intuitive and rather difficult to navigate with options in several tabs / tools. Not very well organized and requires some getting used to.
3. Spent hours with technical support in order to get the 'job separation pages' to work correctly. Eventually, had to install another version of the software that was under a different scanner model on their web page (!) (The options that were described in the manual did not exist in the interface of the original software.)
4. No 5Ghz WiFi support (!)

But overall for the price point a rather good buy.

United States on Feb 23, 2021

Just Me: The last couple of months have been hectic at work as we are reorganizing our company and this means a lot of paperwork needs to be done. It's, of course, easier to file everything electronically, so I have scanned quite a number of pages in order to clean up my files. This allowed me to give the scanner a good workout.

The most impressive thing is the speed at which this operates and still provides clear text and images. Every time I use it, I'm reminded of just how slow the last scanner from Canon was. I was originally impressed with that one.

The setup was quick and easy. I encountered none of the issues other reviewers mention. In all, it took about 15 minutes. The quick start guide is a nice walkthrough of all the required steps. The use of images is a definite bonus vs' just an explanation of each step. While I wouldn't suggest this someone who's new to computers, I don't think anyone who computer literate would have any problems. The guide includes a URL for the Canon website. From there, I downloaded the setup software and let it do its thing. There were a few steps but no hiccups. The site offers both Windows and Mac versions. I used the...

Canada on Feb 22, 2021

SuperE: I estimate that I scan 2000-3000 documents a year, from receipts to multi-page, double-sided documents. Needless to say, having a high-speed document scanner can be a huge asset but only if it's efficient.

The R50 is a wonderfully small unit. Smaller than any printer you might have at home and a much more convenient form factor compared to flatbed scanners with ADF units attached to them.

While Canon's hardware is nice, their software sucks.

Yes, their Windows CaptureOnTouch software "works" after an easy installation but tedious setup, but their Android app is terrible and you cannot use the R50 without either PC or mobile software since the unit does NOT do any of the OCR or file saving directly.

This would be the biggest weakness. Even inexpensive multi-function printers can "send to..." various destinations without being software or app dependant. Not being able to do this directly from such a high-performance scanner is a shame.

The workflow from the R50 involves setting up various "buttons" through the software that allows you to change how the documents are scanned, how the files are named, what file format is used, and...

Canada on Jan 06, 2021

AllGoodNamesRGone: So i sign a ton of documents, especially since working at home during this virus period. I was using another brands all in one printer, which is an office model and expensive but it never did scan documents properly and jammed constantly making me have to redo it since i wanted them pre done in a pdf. This Canon R50 is unbelievable, ive been using it constantly for the past week and it has had absoutely zero errors, issues, jams or problems whatsoever.

It has saved me time, repeated printings of documents having to sign again and preventing me from being at my nerves end. I don't know how i did it before.

All of the documents scanned are much better than my workforce all in one on default settings and extremely fast too. You can program it for higher quality scanned if desired such as for photos or extremely small print. i found that default was a good balance between speed and quality though. It can scan up to 40 pages at a time, does 2 sided too.

The software is easy to install and hook up, instantly being sent over wifi which i had zero issue setting up. Make sure that if your computer is on a 2.4 ghz connection, you sign the scanner up...

Canada on Dec 23, 2020

Laura P.: poor download instructions and when finally downloaded only Japanese language used and 800 number was no help.

United States on Oct 05, 2020