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Canon CanoScan LiDE 300

 & William Harrel Former Contributing Editor

Our team tests, rates, and reviews more than 1,500 products each year to help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.

Our Expert
LOOK INSIDE PC LABS HOW WE TEST
65 EXPERTS
43 YEARS
41,500+ REVIEWS

Size

At 1.7 by 14.5 by 9.9 inches (HWD) and weighing only 3.6 pounds, the LiDE 300 is small and light.

No Power Needed

The LiDE gets its power from and communicates with a computer via a single USB 2.0 cable.

A Sparse, Simple Control Panel

The control panel offers four different ways to process a scan.

Getting at Hard-to-Scan Material

To scan the otherwise hard-to-reach pages inside a book or magazine, the LiDE 300 lets you extend its hinges to accommodate thicker media.

IJ Scan Utility

All available functions are displayed for easy access.

Configuring a Scan

Each function, or type of scan, is configurable from dialog boxes behind the Scan Utility interface.

Scan Once, Image Many

ScanGear differentiates each object and lets you edit and save them as individual items.

Reduce Many Steps to a Few

ScanGear allows you to scan directly into TWAIN-compliant third-party programs, which include most major productivity and creativity applications, like Adobe Photoshop.

About Our Expert

William Harrel

William Harrel

Former Contributing Editor

Bill's Experience

For nearly a decade, Bill focused on printer and scanner technology and reviews for PCMag, and wrote about computer technology since well before the advent of the internet. He authored or co-authored 20 books—including titles in the popular Bible, Secrets, and For Dummies series—on digital design and desktop publishing software applications. His published expertise in those areas included Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Photoshop, and QuarkXPress, as well as prepress imaging technology. (Over his long career, though, he covered many aspects of IT.)

In addition to writing hundreds of articles for PCMag, over the years he also wrote for many other computer and business publications, among them Computer Shopper, Digital Trends, MacUser, PC World, The Wirecutter, and Windows Magazine. He also served as the Printers and Scanners Expert at About.com.

Bill's Expertise

  • Imaging and prepress technology
  • The SOHO, SMB, and enterprise printer and scanner markets
  • Printer and scanner technology (and accompanying software)
  • Consumer-grade and pro-grade photo printing
  • Mobile printing and scanning
  • Optical character recognition (OCR)
  • Document management

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