Customer Reviews

Canon IS12 Color Image Scanner Cartridge

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you have, or are buying, a canon bjc-50, 80, or 85 protable printer (the bjc-85 is great), this is really a very neat extra that works wonderfully well. Let's say you're on the road and need a portable printer with you. Now suppose you get a document that you need to copy or fax, but no machines around. Well, just take out your ink cartridge and put in the IS-12, and scan away! Its that easy. The scans are great. Oh, they're not of the calibre of say the HP6300 or Epson 1200, but they're pretty good for a small, lightweight, portable machine to use in a pinch. The color scans (pictures, photos) are very good and the text is clear and very useable. It doesn't come with OCR, so if you want to edit documents - you'll need to buy a good OCR software (I like Omni Page Pro V.10, or Paperport). This is a very handy, very cool item that works just great and is easy to use!

I've seen several other companies try to produce portable printers or scanners and they have all fallen short of the Canon BJC-55/85. One main reason is this little device that allows you to carry both at once! The software is extremely easy to use. In part because there are no settings to change; you can only ever scan at 300 dpi (most flatbeds have much higher resolution, thus my rating of 4 stars).

However, the image is crisp, color is good, and the unit snaps in very easily. I only wish they included a hard case like the one for the ink cartridge which came with the printer instead of a flimsy plastic "storage" bag. It is so tiny, this is probably the only scanner you'll ever worry about losing :)

I use this scanner primarily for text documents and couldn't be more impressed. You do need text software - I have Textbridge - but I find relatively few errors in the scan, proofreading and corrections are easy and efficient. Best of all, I don't have another device plugged into my computer or taking up space on my desk. Caution - I haven't used it for photos, but it does a great job on text.

I use the Canon BJC-85 printer for printing and scanning letter and legal size documents while out with clients. The IS12 makes my life easy with great looking scans, without lugging around additional equipment.

The biggest complaint I have is that the software isn't Mac OS X compatible, so I end up having to use Virtual PC just to run the scanning software. Not to mention that the scanning software doesn't output to PDF.

Beyond those issues, the IS12 is a nice device which works very well and allows me to scan legal size documents, which my flat bed scanner at home will not. Highly recommended!

I run my own insurance business and was always inundated by a sea of paperwork. This little scanner fits into my BJC-85 printer and serves double duty - I can scan and then print with the same machine. Genius! I would have liked the ability to scan documents into a pdf format, but you can't have everything. This little scanner is the main reason I will not upgrade my BJC-85, as it is not compatible with later models.

This item has been the most durable piece to the little portable printer. Without it, one could not copy, scan, or save such scanned items to the hard drive for re-use. It has never failed, and it has been in use frequently since December 2001.

Setup was painless,i was scanning 5 minutes after i opened the box.A "must have" for any BJC-85 owner.