Canon imageCLASS MF247dw Wireless, Multifunction, Duplex Laser Printer

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SUMMARY OF SETUP TIPS FOR GOOGLE CLOUD PRINT AND SCAN TO EMAIL: 1. Download and update the Firmware to get Google Cloud Print to work (a must for Google Cloud Print) 2. When Setting up Scan to Email - Use multiple browser tabs for the links from the User Manual; the Remote UI; and search for email account settings. Information you need will be scattered and this will help you cross reference/go back and forth. Port settings could be touchy. 2a. If you are going to use GMAIL for Scan to Email - the secret sauce is to alter your gmail account settings to enable access for less secure apps. Hence - better to create a new gmail account just for the printer. 3. If the user is having difficulty with fingers on the touch screen - use a pencil eraser instead of a finger I bought this based on two requirements - ability for me to print to it remotely (from 1000 miles away) and the ability to scan to email. This printer replaces a cheap Epson inkjet multi-function unit (XP420, I believe) that I picked up as a throwaway but discovered that it has those capabilities, but ink management (i.e. drying out and replacement) had become problematic. For $159 - this fit the bill. For the Canon, printing remotely is accomplished by using Google Cloud Print. Scanning to Email is self explanatory. Why do I need this? I help my 88 and 84 year old in-laws who are technology-challenged and live 1000 miles away. When they have a question about something in the mail, I have them scan it to me. I also have them scan bills they receive. Likewise, I find it much easier to give them guidance/instructs on paper. After spending two hours on the phone changing an ink cartridge with my father in-law, it was time to scrap the $50 Epson ink jet in favor of a laser printer. After much research on the few low cost machines with these capabilities from HP, Brother, Samsung, etc... I determined Canon was the way to go. I already have a MF212 at home and have been very happy with its reliability. I give the printer 5 stars as it is plug and play. For me - I opted to plug it directly into the router, instead of connecting via wireless, because it sits 10 feet away from the router. It makes the connection to the router stable/reliable and reduces the potential need for me to have a loooong customer support call with my in-laws over connectivity. Once I installed the driver and software package onto my laptop, I was up and printing and scanning to my laptop over wifi. So - if you can connect the printer to the router via Ethernet cable and only need it to print locally, scan only to your computer or fax - setup is simple. BUT - DO GO to the Canon support webpage for this printer and download the updated drivers, software and manual. MOST IMPORTANTLY - DOWNLOAD and UPDATE the FIRMWARE! Its easy to do - and just takes a few minutes to complete. This MUST BE DONE to be able TO SETUP GOOGLE CLOUD PRINT. TO SET UP SCAN to EMAIL: This was the most challenging due to the scattering of info needed and number of webpages you have to use. The biggest variable that makes it time consuming is that your choice of email account/provider will affect the settings required. And there are far too many providers with their own settings to document. Certainly GMAIL, OUTLOOK and a few others could have been documented... but alas. No. Much time was spent on trial-and-error with ports and eventually, I stumbled upon the secret sauce for gmail - which turned out to be a setting on the email account... not a printer setting. For simplicity, I created a new GMAIL account for this purpose. The printer needs an email account to send from. I could have used one of mine, but I feel it is cleaner to use a fresh/dedicated account... and as it turned out - it is safer to create a new account as you have to enable less secure apps to that account. Be prepared to open multiple browser tabs to keep your sanity. The User Manual will have multiple links to different areas of the manual which you will need to open and refer to, but you will find it much easier to refer to prior pages with all pages open. You will also be opening the Remote UI (user interface) - also another tab - where you will be entering the printers settings. You will need a tab to do a google search for email settings for the email account you are going to use with the printer. You will be bouncing back and forth from different pages..or you can always print the pages! So - when you are about to click on a link... right click and open the link in a new tab. Having to close the Remote UI for some settings to take can also be very frustrating. Open the user manual that you downloaded from the Canon support webpage. In the manual, go to the NETWORK section, then CONFIGURING SCAN SETTINGS/SENDING EMAIL/EMAIL CONFIGURATION SETTINGS RIGHT CLICK on Starting Remote UI and select Open Link in New Tab so you can go back and forth between the two tabs. After starting the remote UI, go back to the configuring e-mail settings tab Open another tab in your browser and search for your email settings; in my case for gmail, I searched smtp port settings for gmail Follow the setting instructs using the info you just searched for as a guide. THE SECRET SAUCE IF USING GMAIL for the printer: login to the gmail account from your browser (Chrome).... mail[dot]google[dot]com. Then go to Settings > Accounts and Import > Other Google Account settings. Under Signing in, enable access for less secure apps. Just read your screen carefully - its a bit obscure to spot on the screen. Once that was done - it started working! Once you save the settings - only way to know if it worked is to send yourself a test scan. I highly recommend setting up yourself as a recipient address to speed up repeated testing. It took me the better part of an hour searching for answers - but patience and eye drops from opening many search results eventually pieced the puzzle together. The gmail secret sauce was at the bottom of my screen that I just happened to see, when I was searching for alternative port numbers. Im now receiving scans, and printing remotely. I truly love it. The documentation path for setting up scan to email could be better, but weak due to the design choice of Canon to not provide a cloud service to consumers. Epson and HP, provide a cloud service like epsonconnect where you set up an email account with them for the printer... this means I can print to it directly by sending an email to the printers epsonconnect email address or receive a scan from the printer via that same email address. Because Canon does not provide this cloud service to consumers, a whole level of intricacy is introduced. I can live with that in my situation as I was able to figure it out. But I cant speak for outlook email, enterprise accounts, etc... The printer has been care free - wake up from power saver mode has not failed once. I have had problems in the past with my HP printer where it did not wake up when I printed remotely. This is a critical issue for me as my in laws could not remember to power cycle the previous printer (Epson) in an attempt to maintain the print heads. Laser is great as I do not print there daily... plus, many more pages come out of a toner cartridge. I have used 3rd party toner with my Canon at home and will try that with this model. Very cost effective. For my in-laws, I created a custom button on the touch screen on the very first/home screen - so all he does is touch the home button to wake up the printer - touch/gently press on the custom button with my name on it, hit start and off we go with the scan to email! BTW... he was having problems with his finger presses on the touch screen being detected. Solution: use a pencil eraser instead of fingertip. I plan to buy another to replace my dumber Canon MF212 that I use at home - cant scan to email. Google Cloud Print works great. Fax capability is still welcome... some transactions/documentation require a fax and not an email. Because I got it running exactly the way I want - this printer gets five stars.

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Prints fine, dont like the fact that it has to be assigned to a primary computer which must be on if trying to use it to print from either wireless devices such as tablets and Chromebooks -which is a serious software issue. If the primary computer isnt on, the printer shows as offline on either devices. Other than that, it prints, scans and faxs well.

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I have to say I like this machine but my lower review is due to how Canon handles the fax feature. I bought the printer and set several hours setting it up. Everything worked fine except the fax receiving. Of course this was the weekend so no tech support. Enter 3 hours of troubleshooting to no avail. Called tech support on my day off and to their credit they were very helpful and without outright saying it here is what is going on. If you read the reviewer many people have problems with fax receipt on this machine. The tech support guy tells me that they can send me a refurbished unit that will fix the problem with the fax modem. I asked, why can’t I just get a new replacement from Amazon to which he explained that will likely have the same problem. Basically, Canon is shipping units with a bad fax modem assuming many people will never use it or notice it too late. And if you complain they will send you one with the problem fixed. I opted for the refurb and it works perfectly for fax receipt on the first try. Canon gets kudos for good tech support, fast overnight shipping of the refurb, making a decent printer at this price point BUT gets a big knock for the shenanigans they play with the fax modem and the hours i wasted fixing it. You now know the game and hopefully if you need the fax feature you can save yourself some time. BTW if you fax a test sheet to 888 473 2963 you will get a fax back so you can test your machine.

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This was a tough one to review. The printer itself seems to work as well as a printer should, so no real complaints. The set up for my macbook pro was a little awkward, but, again, nothing to really complain about. What didnt work is the "manual". It was, for me, one of the most convoluted descriptions and poorest illustrations of any manual Ive seen. It was worthless. i assume it was translated from another language. But, to be fair, I ended up having to call Canons customer service and the person who helped me was quick and to-the-point. His suggestion solved my problem and I was ready to go within a couple of minutes. I hate to ding a whole star, just because a manual was so poorly thought out, but it was that bad.

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The printer itself functions excellent. The scanner and auto document feeder work as they should, the copier functions well, and the printer feature works too. The printer also seems to be efficient with ink. My only issue was set-up, because for some reason the scanner didnt want to work correctly. After several failed attempts to reach customer service, and installing and removing the drivers multiple times without success, I had to hire a private computer support company to come and fix the issue for me, which was extremely expensive.

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I love this printer! While it only prints in black, it is the perfect workhorse for our needs. I have never had a printer that uses toner and it is so fast! 28 pages a minute! I also love the touch screen and all the multi-functions besides copying, ie; scan and fax. It comes with a partially filled black toner cartridge, so with the 2 cartridges I purchased for it, I wont be buying toner for a long time! Buying ink jet cartridges for our old printer was a constant expense with their hefty price tags! It holds a lot more paper and also goes into an energy saver mode which is awesome! I would definitely recommend this to my friends and family!

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Unable to receive faxes automatically. Lots of time on phone between canon and my phone carrier - canon said its a phone carrier issue, phone carrier said its a canon issue. I agree with phone carrier as regular phone worked when plugged in that jack and so did my HP all-in-one fax. So retuning canon and ordering another HP fax.

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Scanner will not feed without jamming, even when you only try and scan a few pages. If scanning is what you are buying this device for, get something different. Supplier shipped quickly and it arrived on time.

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I wrote this almost a year ago and not sure that I posted it - "very few things make me more angry or frustrated than spending money on technology and struggling to get the basic functionality to perform. Its ridiculous." Setting the printer up was hard enough with minimal instructions and rubbish, tiny diagrams. Theres some Canon app which they tried to get me to download. I use Apple/iOS and have never had these issues before. A year later using the printer has been almost as pleasurable as setting it up. There is really nothing to recommend this printer. Every aspect of using it is worse than HP, which I used previously. I am technologically fairly literate but this thing isnt worth the time. And then theres the whole lawsuit with Amazon over ink so you have to buy ink from their store, which is about as friendly as their printer. Hard to find the supplies. HP was easy. And there seem to be so many different Canon printers and ink types youll never find it in Staples.

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Absolutely the worst printer on the market! Ink smudges everywhere with the original Canon Toner (Not an off brand which usually is the cause for poor quality prints) Has printed poorly right out of the box. I will be returning this large piece of junk. Waste of time and huge waste of money. Terrible product. Dont say you havent been warned....

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