Book2Net Spirit A3 review | A bookscanner for reading rooms in 2023

Book2Net Spirit A3 Accessories and options

This device offers an interesting self leveling flat book cradle. That means that when you arrange the book on it, you can compensate for its thickness and the page you are scanning at that moment.

I wish it was featured with a flattening glass, as it would make the scanning process much more predictable and reliable. Even so, I guess that the self leveling book cradle alone is an interesting proposition for this price point.

What we found interesting is that the size of the machine is quite large. It’s not that bad, but at a height of 110cm, you have to be careful when moving it around. Also, the weight is not that big, but still, you need two people to move 36kg around .

Book2Net Spirit A3 features

As you probably already know, you will have to flip pages manually. This is not a full automatic book scanner, so the operator has to do most of the tasks himself.

What he will find helpful is the use of the foot switch. This will free up his hands to do other tasks, and in the end increase the overall productivity of the device.

Book2Net Spirit A3 Technical specs

We get to the technical specs and this is where things get interesting. Let’s start with the scanning size, the device is more or less an A3 + book scanner, which means you will be scanning 2xA4 books.

Speed depends on certain aspects, especially the quality of the captured image. The book2net spirit will do 1200 pages per hour in fast mode, and around 800 pages in quality mode. I guess for most scans you should be fine with the fast mode.

Also, the transfer of the image will be faster in speed mode, because of the lower file size. Therefore the USB connectivity it offers will work just fine when you transfer smaller files.

Book2Net Spirit A3 Image quality

Let’s get a bit to the resolution. The camera is CMOS so this is from the start a lower quality camera when comparing it to CCD.

The advantage is that being an area sensor, it will capture things quickly, in one shot, so less issues with stitching and higher capturing speeds.

It will achieve a scanning resolution of 300dpi, but I guess this should be more than enough the serve it’s purpose, a walk up book scanner.

Book2Net Spirit A3 Software & File formats

Let’s get into the scanning software a bit. The scanner comes with Easy scan, which is Book2Net’s walk up solution, with a big monitor in front of you all the time.

I guess this solution aids working with the scanner, but of course when things and workflows get more complicated, it might not be up to scratch.

Given that this is purposely built to be a walk up book scanner, with Tiff, PDF, Jpeg and even Jpeg 2000 file delivery, it’s definitely a positive aspect.

Book2Net Spirit A3 vs Klip Snap

Here are the key differences between these two book scanners:

When compared to the Klip Snap, I guess the basic differences are in terms of speed and different other features. 

First of all, the Book2net spirit, with the fast mode feature, will be quite a bit faster than the Klip Snap. When using it in quality mode, which of course is more or less like the output of the Klip, the scanning speed is identical. 

What the Klip offers though are 3 main aspects which are definitely critical. 

The first one is the flattening glass. Yes, the Klip will have a glass to press the pages and flatten them. It makes for a better quality scan, and higher overall productivity. 

The second thing is the book cradle. This will work for thicker books on the Klip, and also allow you to spread the cradles from each other. It allows you to fit different kind of books and arrange them perfectly on the cradle