Canon imageFORMULA R50 Business Document Scanner f
$347.00
Price: $347.00
(as of Apr 07, 2025 21:14:24 UTC – Details)
The Canon imageFORMULA R50 office document scanner with color touchscreen is simple to set up and easy to use. Connect via USB cable or Wi-FiĀ® network and quickly convert paper documents to searchable digital files.
Easy to use: Large color touchscreen to select scan destinations or shortcuts, and access settings
Flexible connectivity: Built-in SuperSpeed plus USB and Wi-Fi, allowing local and networked use, and sharing among multiple users
Fast and efficient: Scans both sides of a document at the same time, in color, at up to 40 pages-per-minute, with a 60 sheet automatic feeder (ADF)
High quality imaging: Can automatically adjust output resolution to improve image quality and reduce file size for easier mixed batch document scanning
Broad compatibility: Supports Windows and Mac operating systems; TWAIN driver also included
Reliably handles many different media types single or in batches
Peace of Mind: Backed by a one-year warranty and knowledgeable, friendly U.S.-based technical support
Michael P Dunn –
Great office scanner
We have several off these in our office. They work great! Only gripe is that if you are going to scan embossed (ie insurance cards) you have to turn off page correction. It is not clear in the documentation at all how to do this. You have to do if from the software on the PC and create a new profile with the page correction turned off. Good luck!
Karen Mushier –
Works great.
This scanner is working great. I have never had a misfeed.
Fernando –
Hard to setup
Didnāt worked as expected
GrkG –
Good, fast, reliable scanner – however, with some shortfalls
Pros:1. Fast, efficient, reliable scanning with plenty of features/options.2. Allows ‘long’ scans3. 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.
Christine Teneyck –
High speed and quality
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.
Jeff Sherwood –
Big Time Saver
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.
Mark D. Dingman –
Scanning Quality Sucks
Horrible scanner, will return if possible. After using for several months my complaints are numerous–poor scan quality but looks fine on preview before saving. No compact PDF mode and if you use compression the copy quality sucks even more. I am a fan of the Canon interface but this scanner leaves little to be desired.
Jim M. –
“Error: Cannot Use Driver” for Big Sur.
Looks like a great scanner. Features listed make it a robust scanner. So why the one-star rating? It is supposed to work with Mac OS 11 (Big Sur). It does not. The attached photo shows the error code.My system is a 24″ iMac with a M1 processor. OS 11.4 (Big Sur). CaptureOnTouch version 4.9.21.0518.I tried downloading the newest Big Sur driver. No luck. I tried wireless and USB. No luck. Rebooted between each attempt. It also wanted me to keep downloading the latest driver each time I started up the scanner. Even though I initially installed it, it kept wanting to install the same version number driver every time. I stopped updating it, turning “check update” off when I manually downloaded the Big Sur driver.I really wanted this to work. Maybe they can work the kinks out for the Big Sur operating system. If they do, I will retry it, if I have not sent it back yet), and change my review based on the updated system.Review Update #1: I moved this from one star to three. The way I go it to work – for those who have the same issue – is I downloaded the Catalina (Mac OS 10.x) full software package and installed it. After reboot, it worked. DO NOT use the separate driver upgrade for Catalina or Big Sur (Mac OS 11.x). These break it.Review Update #2: With my new desk configuration, I needed a longer USB cable or switch to Wi-Fi. USB cable seems to be a proprietary cable. Canon web site doesn’t say what connector it uses, nor do the manuals. I cannot I find the info anywhere else. If you know what it is, please let me know (see photo above).I really dislike proprietary items. If I don’t know what cable to buy, I can’t get a longer one. Extension cables seem to cause issues. Switched to Wi-Fi. It is somewhat clunky and in the end, it would not work – gave me the old “Cannot load Driver” error. I updated to the latest 2022 software updates and I still cannot get the Wi-Fi to work. It is a shame. I really like the scanner, but the use of a proprietary USB cable and inoperable Wi-Fi, I’m backing it down to two stars.
Old Barnacle –
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 USB connection as I prefer wired solutions over wireless any day.āŗ Any user who has set up a printer shouldn’t have any problem getting this working. Printers are a lot more work than this.The software does require some attention and setup. This, too, took about 15 minutes, and since the initial setup, I have maybe spent another 15 minutes tweaking the options. Fortunately, the way it’s laid out, the steps are logical.Having the LCD screen is nice, and it is touch-enabled, but thumping is a better description of how it’s used. They could really make it more sensitive.The phone app works but isn’t the most intuitive to use. I’m surprised that Canon didn’t come up with something better.The OCR service works great and fast, and so far, it hasn’t miss-spelled or misread any wording.I have printers that include nice scanners as well, even double-sided, but they don’t do the job anywhere as fast, and I can state that the scanned documents aren’t as good-looking as those from this machine. It doesn’t scan pages as fast as those machines that count money but the performance isn’t much slowerThis isn’t a low-cost option, but like anything else, if you want quality, you pay for it. It’s also the difference between a device that’s meant for occasional home use and one that’s going to be used regularly in an office.
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 on the exact same band or your computer might not pick it up properly(something with firewalls in the router).Overall its a great buy for anyone who signs and scans documents daily. Its a real lifesaver.
Jerry –
Compact. Works fast. Not as easy as you would expect to set up but it got done.
VC –
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 the latest scanner driver/utility from Canon CA website and did a test scan of 60sheets with the new arrived scanner. It worked as quick as advertised. The bundled software showed all the scanned thumbnail on the right side and let me view/delete/rotate and arrange the images before saving them into a PDF file. I was very happy and thought I have the right tool for the archive work. Then I went back to clean up the mass amount of source materials that need to be scanned (remove all the tapes, staple and other obstacle that will jam the scanner). A few weeks later, all the papers are cleaned up and I began the scanning. The auto-feeder can hold 60 sheets at once. Within 2 mins, I got 120 images in the scanner app on the computer screen. I removed the images that are not needed and fixed the orientation of some pages, then I loaded in another stack. I press the continue button, and 120 new images are appended to the first scan. I scroll down to check out the new added image but when image #201~202 is reached, the viewer will pop back to image #1. I can’t view/delete/rotate, nor arrange any image over #200. I CAN ONLY SAVE A BUNCH OF IMAGES THAT I DON’T KNOW IS GOOD OR NOT (See attached uncut video). I contacted Amazon but since it is a bit over 1 month, there is nothing they can do about it. Canon Canada has NO solution to fix the flaw. As a result, I am stuck with a sucker that can only process 100 sheets of page at a time.Thank you for reading the long story. Don’t repeat my stupid mistake for keeping the scanner more than a month.
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 where you’d like the scans to go. It is intuitive to set this up, but you’ll need to set up quite a few of these if you plan to scan from the R50 directly (instead of through your computer screen).For instance, if want to program black and white scans saved in PDF going to a folder in your OneDrive, you can do that. But if you want the same with a color scan then you have to create a separate “button” with the new setting. Each “button” is saved so that from the R50 you can scroll through the various preset to select the one you want. If your workflow doesn’t change much then this may not be a big deal, but if you have a mixed workflow or multiple users then it can become tedious.To Canon’s credit, though, the OCR is pretty much instant, and the results of each scan are excellent.One final pain-point with this scanner is the touchscreen. Don’t expect it to be responsive like your smartphone – it’s not. In fact, tapping on areas multiple times to get it to register the button press is pretty “normal”.Overall, depending on your use-case, this scanner will either be an efficiency powerhouse or a frustrating, fragmented experience.