VIISAN VF3240 Large Format Flatbed Scanner, A3 Size, 2400 DPI, CIS Sensor, Scan 297 × 420 mm / 11.7" x 16.7" in 4 sec, Frameless, Auto-Scan, Document & Photo & Book Scanner, Supports Windows & Mac

EDIT: Since I bought and use this scanner, I'm now getting questions. People ask questions that are not really related to the SCANNER but more to the SOFTWARE that you use. Things such as file formats, OCR, etc. If you are on a Macintosh you use either the native Image Capture App, or a 3rd party one that I don't know about. (VueScan does not support the Viisan). This scanner is tabloid size so that's the size it takes up on your desk. It's NOT any noisier or quieter than any other scanner I've used, but I will say the "overview" pre-scan is a bit noisier than the actual scanning which is fairly quiet. There's negative commentary about LINES or missing pixels; these are not inherent to the scanner itself (design flaw) but to the specific unit YOU received. Got lines? Return it for an exchange. Mine's fine. I've attached four scans here. All done with Mac Image Capture. First is a brochure with "descreening" box ticked. Second is old deteriorating paper art from 1977; those grooves are the paper not the scanner. Third is an old photo from 1949, original. Fourth is the same photo after a few clicks in Photoshop. I will say that every photo I've ever scanned--on this scanner or with my now gone Epson Perfection V500 Photo--has been "dark" and needed work in Photoshop. That's without exception. This Viisan scanner is on par with my old Epson, good enough for most work. If you are a photo retouching professional, and need something this big, you probably would spring for an Epson at 4x the cost. Now onto the original review: There's a limited market for tabloid or "B" sized scanners; mostly graphic designers with perhaps scrapbookers. Most scanners of this sized are significantly more costly, such as the Epson 12000XL which is well over $3,000; this unit is under $500, thus a fraction of the price of the competition. Well, it stands up quite well. I tested it against my V500 Photo, and results were exceedingly close, and I cannot say one was better than the other. It's fast in scanning, easy to connect by USB. Would be nice if there were an Ethernet port instead as I seem to be maxing out my USB ports in number or power. (USB hubs don't work well.) I only used it with the Macintosh Image Capture application, and it's fine. I was hoping that Viisan would have made their Viiscan software for the Macintosh (majority of graphic designers use Macs of course) but they have not--a strategic error since it appears as if the Viiscan offers features that the Image Capture does not. I have not tried any 3rd party software. Overall exceeded my expectations. If you need tabloid size scanning and don't have thousand$ to spend you will not be disappointed.

Large format is nice and it scans fast, but Image quality is poor if you are scanning printed images (magazines, brochures, etc...) It said it could handle high quality artwork images and photos and technically, it can, but the resulting scans are useless if you want to do anything with those images, be it printing or posting online. Also, none of the software works with a Mac, you have to use the built in Image Capture app.

This is exactly what I was looking for. I wanted a scanner that had a large scan area so that I could scan my drawings that I had completed on larger size paper. This was very easy to set up. My computer does not have a disc drive so I just went to their website and downloaded the driver from there. It took me all of 5 minutes to set this up. It scans beautifully. The software has various scan options. I do have to do some color correction in another software program but not as much correction is required compared to my old printer/scanner that I used before getting this scanner. I did have to purchase an extra long printer cord for it as it does not have Bluetooth or Wifi connectivity and the only place that I had to put it was on an extra side table that is about 5 feet away from my computer tower. All in all I love it. I am finally able to scan my larger artworks instead of having to take them to Staples and paying to have them scanned.

**NOTE TO MAC USERS** You don't have to use Viisan's scanning software, which I read was awful. You do need to download the driver, but after that you can just use Apple's built-in "Image Capture" app. ***************************** I do a lot of scanning, and have gone through five Epson scanners in the past decade. I can't vouch for the longevity of Viisan's unit yet, but in initial quality Viisan is superior to Epson in every way. This is despite the fact that the first time I used the lid-lift feature on the Viisan to allow scanning thicker materials (like books), the thin plastic joint snapped. Yeah, it's a low bar Epson has set. The lid still works fine, it's just a bit wobbly without the stabilizing joint. This is also despite the fact that the unit is noisy, as every review mentions. Not just noisy when it's trucking the interior parts back and forth, it hums loudly while scanning. I really don't care about the noise, personally. I deducted a star for the snapped joint only. The Good aspects are the price, the size, the speed, and the quality of the scans. When I was scanning identical material with an Epson, I always had to Auto-Tone the image in Photoshop because it'd look washed out. And even with Auto-Tone, I couldn't get the black black enough from an Epson scanner. The Viisan produces gorgeous, PERFECT scans. No post-processing needed. Even the black is perfect. I've been scanning at 1200 DPI (it allows up to 2400) color photos in half the time the Epson scanner took. In what's important to me, Viisan is heads and shoulders above Epson. If this unit lasts more than a couple years, I don't see how Epson can compete in the long run.

I'm an archivist who digitizes lots of interesting old historic documents. I couldn't find any reviews on the product from those in archives/professional digitization. My review is long, but I'm hoping that I can help other professionals avoid a few headaches. The TLDR: It's exciting that there's some new low-cost oversize scanners on the market, but unfortunately this machine isn't quite up to my personal standards for digitizing documents in a professional setting. The Long Version: I scan a lot of old documents, books, booklets, photos, etc, and I decided to give the Viisan VF320 a test drive. I'm working with a Mac, which means that the only way to get the scanner to function is with the bare bones built-in Image Capture Mac software. Using this software, you are only able to select pre-set DPI levels (300, 600, etc up to around 2400), which is annoying, but not quite a deal-breaker. The color accuracy of the Viisan isn't great. It seems to run really high in magenta, and some tan documents have turned out pink for me. The color gets a little better when you select the "Color Matching" setting in Image Capture. There may be some way to calibrate the machine, but I didn't see any instructions on how to do this with a Mac. The auto-populating of the filenames (when scanning a collection with multiple parts) is also pretty bad in Image Capture--lots of renaming after finishing a collection. My biggest beef with the Viisan scanner: If the item you're scanning isn't completely flat against the glass (such as a book with a tight binding, where part of the page may be partially lifted off the glass by just a few millimeters, or a fragile document that has been folded and you don't want to put too much weight on the creases), the scanner creates a blurry image of that area. For me, this has meant a lot of re-scanning to mitigate this issue, or settling for blurry scans (which I'm not willing to accept). I did an A-B test on a few items that were showing that issue, and the Viisan was consistently blurry whereas my Epson scanned the "problem areas" with zero blurriness. This issue wound up being the deal breaker for me, and I will probably be returning the machine. The Viisan scans quickly, definitely faster than the large flatbed Epsons using the same DPI setting. If you're working with documents that you can lay completely flat on the glass, you'll get a usable scan, although you might need to mess around with the colors in editing afterwards. The Viisan's physical footprint is considerably smaller and better-looking that of an oversize Epson--other reviewers complaining about the machine's size have probably never used a large flatbed before. I was actually looking forward to having this machine at my desk! All of problems aside, the fact that Viisan created this scanner is step in the right direction, and I'm appreciative to them. Other reviews show that artists and amateurs really seem to love the machine for scanning their large documents. I want to encourage Viisan to continue producing these items. Epson (the industry standard) appears to be killing off most of their flatbed scanners, so Viisan has a huge opportunity to step in and fill a huge void in the marketplace. To Viisan: Please consider Mac-friendly software, the image-blurriness-when-items-aren't-completely-flat-on-the-glass issue, and work on the color calibration. I would be more than happy to try the next version of this scanner--maybe even two of them! : )

I have been using the VF3240 scanner for over two years now. I love it and am so glad I chose it. The detail it captures is impressive. I have worked for over thirty years in the printing industry and as a graphic and fine artist. The large-scale scanning bed is perfect for my 12" x 16" highly-detailed pencil drawings. I sell 1:1 prints of my art work and need the scanner to pick up every nuance of the drawings, and the VF3240 does just that! Recently the USB cable plugged in the back of the scanner was struck, bent sideways, and pulled away from its circuit board, so it no longer could communicate with my PC. I didn't know how to get it repaired so I sent an email to VIISAN requesting help or advise. I heard back from them the very next day, and even though my scanner was no longer covered under warranty, they offered to replace it with a fully refurbished unit. I am so greatful for their offer. I'm glad to know there are manufacturers that take pride in their product and care about their customers. If you are in the marked for a large-bed scanner the VIISAN VF3240 is the one to get! I give them 5 stars!!

It's a nice, big scanner. Decent quality and decent price. The driver works with Mac M processors. But the scanner software does not.

I am very satisfied with my Viisan 3240 large-format scanner. I have been using it with ABBYY FineReader 12.1.14 for Macintosh, on a 2015 MacBook Air / 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD running macOS Monterey 12.5 Beta. As advertised, this device is about twice as fast at scanning its entire 11 x 17 / A3-sized area, in 4 seconds, as my other one (a CanoScan LiDE 700F) is at scanning its 8.5 x 11 / A4-sized area (which is 30% shorter), both at 200 dpi. 300 dpi scanning is quite fast too — I assume 6 seconds to scan the whole area. As some other users have noted in their reviews, the Viisan VF3240 is a bit noisy, a little more so than my CanoScan. But the noise does not bother me much and it is sort of what I expect, from the scanning mechanism moving rapidly beneath the glass of the whole 17" / 42 cm length of an A3 page. Scans of pages that take up less than the entire area are correspondingly faster. The brightness of the scanner’s lamp seems good, and so far it does not appear to result in dark, blurred text near the central spine of book pages. I have not run into any problems in the short time I have owned this scanner, which I received on May 31st, 2022, so I cannot comment on any technical support issues. I have been using it to scan mostly text and not graphics, and currently have no real need to be concerned about color issues, so I cannot comment on those or other matters related to scanning photos or art. I also have only used the device with FineReader, not any bundled software or other applications. At least in FineReader, one can start a scan from the software side, without needing to press any physical buttons on the device, which seems to be an inconvenience of at least one other large-format scanner I was considering before opting for this one. At the time of purchase I had not seen the Viisan VF3240 ($450) up close, and I was considering whether to buy the VF3120 ($370) instead. But the doubled speed of the VF3240 definitely makes it worth the higher price. Overall, the VF3240 is a very impressive, fast, easy-to-use device, capable of handling large page sizes. It works well with FineReader for macOS, and I would highly recommend it to anyone with a similar setup.