CZUR Aura Pro Book & Document Scanner,Capture A3 & A4, Auto-Flatten & Deskew Powered by AI Technology, Foldable & Portable, Compatible with Windows & Mac OS

Given the price point, the Aura is a wonderful addition to your scanning equipment, especially if you scan uncommon dimensioned pages or books/booklets. 1) The packaging was very professional, quite elegant and more than adequate to protect the contents. Amazon double boxes, so that's a plus. 2) The overall UI is very easy to understand and utilize. There are only a few enhancements that I would like to see (mentioned later). The software performs pretty much flawlessly. I had a few user errors initially, which tech support cleared up quickly. It took about 1 day and about 4 hours of use to get the process down to where I could scan a book very fast. 3) The equipment itself takes up so little room on your desktop, and you can leave the black mat permanently on your desk, as it doesn't get in the way and is very durable. I would even suggest that many scanner users simply put aside their old scanners and leave this one out for 99% of your work. Only when you need resolutions above 300 dpi would you pull out the older scanner. 4) The software has many options, and I found that while the defaults were Ok, I preferred to increase the dpi and jpg resolution to better values, so as to ensure a higher quality output. This did not slow down the performance of the unit at all. In fact, the speed of the scanning process is amazingly fast; I would guess about 2-3 seconds when scanning both left and right sides of the facing book. Less than that for a single page. 5) The included sidelights were very useful for glossy surfaces. Without them, the upper LED's cause a slight reflection; the sidelights did not. Very nice the way they mount too, quite impressive engineering. 6) The "autoscan" feature is most impressive. It auto-senses your turning the pages, waits, then proceeds once the motion has stopped. Wow, makes it quite fast to scan 100 pages or more. This is one of my favorite features, and basically eliminates the need for the foot pedal. 7) Suggestions: Mainly I would like to see some very simple UI improvements, such as: a) support for mouse scrolling while hovering over certain UI sections; b) putting more of the software "options" in one place. It can be a bit difficult to find them all, as they are generally buttons on each functional page, and you have to hunt the options down. For example, the default folder for storing the temporary scanned images - not on the main page, but on the scanner page, under a button in the top left. c) I would also like to see the user manual be updated, as well as a place on their webpage for general tech support library of user questions and answers. In many cases, it would be easier to search for a question, rather than emailing the tech support team. This would also free up their time for other things.

Very handy for reducing paper clutter. For scanning books, the page flattening works if the book is positioned and held correctly. One should practice a little before trying a big job, but it's easy to get the hang of, and the software allows one to redo pages that don't come out just right. OCR works pretty well PROVIDED one has successfully scanned a page without much distortion, which is why practicing is important. When scanning a new book I would suggest a few trial scans of pages near the front, back, and middle, with the finger cots, to get a feel for the best way of holding it. I consider this a good purchase, and hope to make a lot of use of it.

Great scanner. Good colors; the automatic scan option makes scans fast! You only need to turn the pages, and when your hands clear the field of view, it will trigger the shutter. Previously I bought a cheaper model from the same brand, but had to return it due to poor resolution, graining and poor color representation. This model's resolution is the minimum you will need for a decent scan. Anything lower - just forget about it. This one is a perfect balance between quality and price. Also, sometimes (and quite often) you won't be able to do without the back lighting, it works like a miracle. In addition, this model looks great on the desk and can double as a desk lamp.

I got this to digitize my books for portability and for the OCR to speed research and the ability to digitally quote references in research works. The English texts I scanned the OCR was almost perfect including picture placement on pages, etc. I have a large collection of German texts printed in various Fraktur fonts. Unfortunately, the OCR is not up to par with this but there are ready work around via Gemini for example to get the texts read. The set up and software download and set up were very easy to do. The user interface is pretty good and fairly intuitive. It takes a little getting used to some of the ways it operates but overall a good experience. Scans are quick and I was able to do a 200 page fragile book in less than 20 minutes. I'm sure I could get quicker with practice. The main issue is that the scanner won't always recognize the page borders and will get your hand even using the finger cots. Overall a good addition to my library but because of the issue listed above I would give it 4 out of 5 at this price point.

I bought it to replace my very old PiQx scanner, which they don't make anymore, and I was amazed at how much the quality of portable book scanners has improved. The design is elegant (including the packaging), the setup is easy, and it has been utterly reliable for books, flat pages, and pictures. I have not needed to use the finger cots -- it erases actual fingers perfectly. There is no need to buy the mat or finger cots separately; they come as part of the package. One of the other reviewers complained that when it failed to erase a fingerprint, all pages after that would contain the fingerprint. I figured out the answer: if there is even a tiny speck of dust anywhere on the mat, or the corner of an already-scanned page, the scanner will see it as part of the picture, expand the frame, and include fingers. So the solution is to keep the mat very clean and all will be well. I thought the desk lamp feature was a gimmick, but I have actually used it a lot. Because the camera head/light folds down, it takes up almost no space and you can open it to use the desk lamp feature as needed, whereas with a real desk lamp, it is always hanging over the workspace and getting in the way. A wonderfully well-thought-out product. Bravissimo, CZUR! Update a year later...this thing is AWESOME! It does everything it's supposed to and I haven't had any problems at all. I liked it so much I bought one for my sister. She couldn't get hers to work with Windows 11, but I'm pretty sure the CZUR people have fixed that problem by now.

I had high hopes of scanning my paperback collection and converting it to EPUB. That really isn’t going to work out. It took a while to get hang of scanning a paperback book. That went alright. The post scanning clean-up took longer. Had to do a lot of cropping. Then the OCR worked well but the formatting into Word wasn't great and it didn’t translate well into EPUB. Bummer. But I’ve got a great PDF copy. It just didn’t work out as I’d hoped for this aspect. Now as a scanner it is awesome. Very good at scanning flat pieces of papers and can do so very rapidly. Way better than the flat-bed scanner I replaced. So that is great.

Very good scanner, accurate colors and surprisingly good results. The software can accurately straighten the image, there is no need to have a fixed point as in a flatbed scanner. I’m still learning the ins and outs of using the scanner, but once the item to be scanned is on the mat and connected to the computer, this is like taking an image—there is no waiting for the scan head to scan the item. I’m very happy and like the features I’ve explored so far, including the ability to brighten the scanner’s light.

Recently, I decided to reduce my storage space of old documents I held but whose information with which I did not want to part. On Amazon, I saw scanner options that were quite different from my old, slow, large-format scanner. I came across two scanners that impressed me with their speed and quality: the ScanSnap iX1300 and this project, the CZUR Aura Pro. Each of these scanners was priced around the same -- in the $250 range. I saw value in each type of scanner. The ScanSnap iX1300 provided me with the ability to feed stacks of documents to quickly make them into a single PDF (usually what I wanted). The CZUR Aura Pro offered me the ability to scan larger-format items to make them into a single PDF, when the ScanSnap iX1300 couldn't handle their size. First, I bought the ScanSnap iX1300, and it was only a few days later that I committed to also buying the CZUR Aura Pro -- mainly because I had a lot of notebooks I wanted to scan and the Aura Pro offered that ability in a fast-paced way -- plus, I was also interested in scanning books. In the end, I've spent about $500 in scanners for my project, and although some may gasp at that investment, the cost savings should work out because of the reduced physical storage costs I will inherit (and the virtual storage costs will be trivial if anything with all of the new digitized documents). In addition, I will inherit the sleek technology to aid my habit shift toward parting with paper and digitizing and backing up paper I would be otherwise inclined to keep. As for the CZUR Aura Pro, most of the other reviews already hit on its merits, and they are what sold me on it. Plus, some YouTube videos on it really drove home the point of how remarkable this device is. I have rated it 5 stars, though it does have some minor flaws but ones that I do not feel are worth suggesting this is an inferior purchase or product. There is room for improvement in nearly every product, and in my mind, this is solidly in the 5-star zone of products. As for the design, it is astounding. I love that they thought of making it a light as well as a scanner, encouraging a use case that is always available. For me, I do not have the desk space for it to be always out, so its folding design means I will be able to store it easily. It is also lightweight, so that is an added benefit over having something super heavy. Although I don’t use it, I thought it was really a nice touch to have the screen atop the scanner. Most of my scanning its seated and occasionally looking at my computer, which is why I don’t use the screen on the scanner as much. The snap-on light is super convenient, and toggling between light modes is effortless. As for the function, it is also astounding. My favorite feature, by far, is Auto Scan. In Flat Single Page mode, I can rip through scanning of spiral-bound notebooks in no time. The intelligence of the Auto Scan is what really surprises me, because although it seems to go at a pace of about every two seconds, it only does this when it detects no movement, so if you’re still turning a page or adjusting it, it doesn’t suddenly scan your hands and ruin your workflow. When you’re ready, you back your hands away and you’ll see red scan lines quickly flash, so you know your document has been scanned and you can proceed to turn the next page. The pace is fantastic. Seriously, removing the need to click or push the foot pedal really picks up scanning time, making it a breeze! Another amazing feature is auto-rotation that the scanner does. I can throw down a document at any angle, and when it scans, it is automatically aligned. Although sometimes it gets the orientation wrong, about 99% of the time it gets it right (and when it gets it wrong, you don’t blame it because the item is understandably confusing). To fix any rotation issues, using the Rotate feature usually does the trick -- or else scan again. Most of my scanning is done in Auto Enhance, and when I scan most documents that have no or minimal color (blue ink, for example), it tends to scan as black and white. I can, of course, adjust this to Color to capture richer color if I want. I have to use Crop on some of my larger documents or those that the scanner adds in the background (the mat), but that happens infrequently. The software has a small learning curve that can be overcome with a little practice scanning an item at the beginning, as you nail down your workflow. For me, I click the + sign to select the primary destination of my scanned images, then the > button to Scan, then put the item on the mat, check off the Auto Scan box then hit the Scan button, and then I just watch for the red lines on my item before I turn the page. When I’m done, I exit out of scan, click the orange checkbox icon to select all of the scanned images, then select Searchable PDF to export all of the scanned images as a single searchable PDF to an external drive that syncs to online backup. Then, I throw out the item I just scanned! (Depending on how large your Searchable PDF is, it may take a few minutes for the software to export the file, but exporting as a regular PDF is faster (and it still seems to make any text it detects as copy-and-pasteable. Exporting can run in the background, so I don't have to wait for the first PDF to export before I move on -- I can just start scanning the next item!) Here are some minor issues I have with the CZUR Aura Pro. Let me stress these are not deal-breakers, and I would highly recommend this scanner and I am extraordinarily pleased with it. - Sometimes, my computer (Macbook Air, M2) has trouble finding the device. To date, when this happens, I try a number of things. a. Disconnect the scanner from my computer and try again. b. Disconnect the USB cable from the scanner and try again. c. Disconnect the power cable from the scanner and try again. d. Do any number of these things several times. e. Try connecting to my computer rather than a hub or vice versa. - The USB cable is relatively short for my use, which is a fixed laptop in a small room outside which is the scanner. a. When I added a USB-A extension cable, the first time the scanner would not display on my Mac. I bought a higher-end USB-A extension cable, and the first time it didn’t work. When I added a USB-C adapter to it, my Mac recognized it. b. To date, I think USB-A and USB-C connections will work, it just may take several tries and some patience for the device to be recognized. - Facing Pages mode is a little tricky. This mode is for scanning books and having the software split the scanned image into two separate images to make separate pages. a. Admittedly, I haven’t worked with this much yet. b. When I first tried it, the scanner kept rotating my scanned images, often around 45 degrees. c. Others reported this as a relatively recent issue (as of December 2024), which suggests to me a software issue that might get fixed in a future software update. d. I am not certain, but my rotation issue may have been the result of ambient daylight on the mat, causing to confuse the scanner. I will have to play with this to see. (Now, I try to shield my scanner's mat from light leaking onto it by putting a simple box on my desk to block window light from pouring onto the mat.) - The mat ships in a scroll, so it takes days before it will lie flat — if ever! a. The curve created by the scroll means the far edges will rise up off the desk slightly, possibly confusing the scanner or showing your desk in your images. b. One edge might calm down with time. The inner part of the scroll makes that edge really curved, so it may take more time. I have had my scanner several days and it hasn’t relaxed yet — and when I store it, I might be going back to square-one with the issue. c. This issue is surmountable. Generally, it doesn’t interfere with scanning — it just would be nice if the mat would stay flat. - The software is designed well, though the workflow could be perfected. a. When I have a single page I want scanned and exported to PDF, I can do this with the Aura Pro. However, this is much faster to do with my ScanSnap iX1300. b. So, I use my Aura Pro on items that ScanSnap iX1300 can’t handle — either in terms of size or texture. c. After I scan an item with the Aura Pro and I want to adjust the scanned image, I have to check off the image, then apply the adjustment (Rotate, Crop, etc.). Then, I have to remember to uncheck the scanned image. If I don’t do this and move on to another image to tweak, I might end up inadvertently applying the new adjustments to the prior image — even undoing my work on the first scanned image. I just have to be careful — there is something not intuitive here. - The multiple Confirm buttons in the software are annoying. a. Although they are likely a safety issue, there seem to me too many times I have to click a Confirm button. I think these should be reduced, or one should have the ability to request not being reminded. b. All in all, the fewer clicks I need to make, the better! In the end, though, these are trivial issues. The Aura Pro is, by far, an ingenious scanner, and I am so happy I made this purchase. You should, too!

Had a book that was falling apart which was quite pricey and would take almost a month to ship a replacement. Decided to buy this to preserve the book, and many others. its done an excellent job. Its quick once you get the hang of it and with all the image editing options the scan came out looking better than the original book !

1- long conetion time to win 10 - it can take about 5 min. 2-long scaning time in auto mode, much longer than described. 3-Adjustment after scaning - program crashes after few hundrid pages an you need to start over.

El scanner funciona muy bien, rápido y el OCR es muy preciso. Trabaja perfectamente bien, lo mismo con documentos, libros de pasta blanda y libros de pasta dura. Hace la corrección geométrica muy bien y me ha permitido también digitalizar algunos dibujos en formatos mas grandes. Funciona además como una lámpara de escritorio bastante elegante.

Great for scanning thick books without damaging them. Takes a little use to get used to it.

Quality product that was easy to set and begin scanning. It is as fast as advertised and the OCR Software is equally fast and very accurate. Extremely pleased.