Ectaco C-Pen. 3.0 Multilingual Handheld OCR Scanner Pen

As a scholar who works with books and other printed sources a lot, I have long been on the lookout for an easy way to scan text into my laptop. I've tried using both flatbed scanners and digital cameras for this purpose, but I've found both to be awkward and time-consuming. That's why I was pleased to discover the C-Pen 20 it's not perfect, but it does the job quicker and more easily than any of the alternatives.

PROS:

It's easy to use; you just press the pointer to the page and a light comes on to let you know that the sensor is active. You then sweep the C-Pen from left to right at moderate speed as if it were a highlighter, and it converts the text on the page into electronic characters on your computer.

The text instantly appears wherever the cursor on your screen is located, so you can use this device with just about any Windows program (e.g., Word, Access, etc.).

The recognition rate is higher than I thought it would be; it's better than 99% on book-sized text. In practical terms, this means that you'll get one or two errors on average per paragraph, but these flaws are easily corrected (particularly if your spell checker highlights them for you automatically).

It's small and easily portable, so you can take it with you to libraries and archives with a laptop.

CONS:

The character recognition is sometimes thrown off by underlining and other marks on the page.

You must use it with a PC or laptop that has a USB port (it doesn't run on batteries like some scanning pens).

Even though it recognizes just about every major language written in Latin, Cyrillic, or Greek letters, it can't handle older typefaces (like German Fraktur). It also has trouble recognizing some symbols (such as footnotes).

You have to scan each line of text one at a time, so it's not necessarily the best solution if you need to copy many pages of text.

The bottom line is that the C-Pen 20 has been an excellent investment for me, and I recommend it to anyone who's looking for an easy way to transfer printed text into an electronic medium.

UPDATE (2011):

I wrote this review almost five years ago. I continue to think highly of this product despite the occasional error, I'm still amazed at how accurately it reads text most of the time. I only have two caveats to add:

1) The original grey and beige C-Pen 20 doesn't work with newer 64-bit versions of Windows, only 32-bit ones. This is tricky if you bought your PC or laptop in the past two years or so, you may be running a 64-bit version of Windows without realizing it (they both look the same to a non-technical user). You can check which version you have by going to Control Panel and selecting "System" it should say "32-bit" or "64-bit" under "System Type." If you have a 64-bit copy of Windows, you'll need to buy the newer C-Pen 3.0 or 3.5, or else see if you can find a black C-Pen 20 (which is also 64-bit compatible).

2) Digital cameras and OCR (optical character recognition) technology have improved dramatically over the past few years. If you need to scan multiple pages of text into electronic form, a digital camera and a good software program (Finereader or Omnipage) might be a better alternative. For saving snippets of text, however, the C-Pen continues to be the best solution.

I am a bit of a scanning pen fanatic. I write papers and use them to collect research data. That is why I was excited to see that C-Pen (the best scanning pen manufacturer) had come out with a new model (the first in several years). My expectation was that this model would be far better than the C10 (the previous USB scanner) given the advance in technology since its release. I was pretty disappointed overall. This model is no quicker than the C10 and no more accurate. The software does not do as good a job as the C10 and it is not uncommon to have the pen miss an entire line of text. This is particularly important since I am often scanning very rapidly and don't take time to look up at the screen to see that the text is entered correctly.

Overall, not as good as the C10 (which I would give 4 stars), but better than the Iris Pen Executive (2 stars).

Please also note that this pen does not work with Mac computers (the only USB pen that does is the Iris Pen).

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I feel completely compelled to write this review for the C-Pen 20. It far exceeds my expectation. I am a graduate student, working on a doctorate at Harvard University. It is a tool, or better yet, a weapon that has reduced my time tremendously. I wish I had it while going through my master's program.

I would say that it is about 90% accurate right out of the box without any training. I have had it about 3 weeks now, and with improved technique, I have increased its accuracy to about 95% 97%. I have found it helpful to always perform the stroke left right. It is easier for 2 reason, 1) that is the way humans read and 2) you don't have to readjust the position of your hand.

I would recommend it to anyone who has to do research, or persons who are in a profession where previous documentation is necessary.

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I am a money manager in NYC. I probably read over 150 pages of research everyday. In order for me to track ideas and not forget things it is important for me to have some sort of method to organize this information overload. My first purchase was the IRIS Executive pen. It did a horrible job of converting written text into MS WORD, the error rate was over 50% and made the task of cleaning it up twice what it would of been if I just decided to type it. I returned it within 5 days. I went ahead and purchased the C-PEN (with a return policy). What a Difference! I can run through 100 pages of research and condense it into 2 pages with minimal errors. Not only does it create legible conversion (over 90%) but once you lift the pen it creates a space for you..(no need to hit a button on pen) This is probably the only one that should be invested in, they have the idea and technology down pat. C-PEN has made my life easier!

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in a general sense, this c-pen seems OK, but:

there shouldn't be too much light (this is a problem especially at night time, i.e. under a bulb)

you shouldn't expect too much accuracy; i'm using it for Turkish texts and the overall accuracy is around 80%.

quality of the book also effects the result

tables and figures can't be scanned, of course

and finally, you've to be connected to your computer during operation.

Yet, i'm happy with this thing. It reduces the labour necessary to extract large amounts of text. Could be useful especially for PhD students.

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