Ectaco C-Pen 20 Handheld Scanner

First of all, I have a Mac 10.4.11 and the drivers won't work with it. The pen won't light, which means that the Mac is not recognizing it. I had downloaded the latest drivers and according to its instructions is supposed to work with 10.4, but that's not true. I thought there was something wrong with it until I boot up the windows XP version and it worked right after I installed the drivers. If you keep the Pen straight and not at an angle, you can get pretty close to the speed of highlighting. I had to type 35 chapters last semester to make my own notes. I had to take time off from work and it took me about two weeks. I do type 40 WPM, but it's just too much work and it's very exhausting turning your head in one direction while typing. Now with this gadget, summarizing chapter is a breeze. It's very fast, faster than I thought it would be. Everytime you lift the pen it automatically transfer the information and it's ready to continue. Love it, I just hope it would work with the Mac. I heard that it works fine with Mac os 10.5 version. I just hate looking at windows, but it's worth the trouble.

I use it for data entry on tax returns. It works great on white backgrounds, but not so good for colors other than white. I will buy 2 more next year for my staff.

This product doesn't scan accurately, and is a waste of time and money. I think that says it all.

The pen works really well. The accuracy is right on. I mostly needed it to scan my textbook so it could essentially type my notes for me. it was highly accurate and easily used. I can insert a return when i need to by one simple push of the function button. if you need it to scan text and throw it on your computer with ease this is the pen for you. its worth a try and def worth the money. my one drawback for me is it is NOT compatible with a mac. i have a macbook aluminum running os x and i spent a good amount of time trying to get it up and running and it was a no go. so the good thing was i have parallels and it worked out fine, but since on my parallels i don't have word i have to put it in wordpad then trasnfer it to word.

the pen stays connected to the computer.
it's extremely easy to use. just point and scan. the button on the tip of one of the legs turns on the light letting you know its scanning.
it is really accurate and does what it is supposed to.

As a law student, the C-Pen 20 was just what I needed to covert numerous documents into text on a word processor. Once you get the hang of holding the pen at a certain angle, the pen actually recognizes text quicker than the product description and instructions say - as long as you are scanning under the proper conditions. The pen experienced no problems recognizing black text on a white background, and recognized most symbols as well. If the text is a different color, or the background is not white, the pen's performance will be substantially hindered and the most common result will be a long string of gibberish, regardless of how slow you scan the text. I tried out the bar code scanning mode, and experienced no problems, but that was not the primary reason for my purchase.

So in summery, for scanning black text on a white background, this pen will be superb for your needs. For any other conditions, you will experience significant problems and should look for another solution - though you will likely have to purchase a much more expensive scanner to avoid this problem.