Post Published on June 20, 2013.
Last Updated on April 29, 2016 by davemackey.
Historically when I’ve bought a scanner it has come with scanning software – usually an outdated version of PaperPort.
More recently, however, the software that comes with various scanners has been limited and sometimes almost useless. Windows built-in tool (Windows Fax and Scan) is okay if you are scanning images – but for documents, you really need something more robust. Here I’m going to provide a brief guide to some of the products currently available – including some free options.
Please feel free to reply in the comments if you
- Know of other software that should be listed here.
- Have feedback on any of the products listed here.
- Are related to the company and want to provide additional insight on the product.
ScanWorks
This is interesting – it is a web-based scanning application, though it does require installing a client on one’s local machine. It is free and there is also a premium version available for $20/annually (not bad). I wasn’t a huge fan of the web interface, but it might be more attractive to others.
iCopy
Everyone likes free and open source – and that is exactly what iCopy is. I used it to scan in some documents recently and it worked fairly well, but its UI is not intuitive and it is buggy. It doesn’t create an output file until the end of a multi-page scan and if you scan too many pages it will crash due to consuming too much memory. Still, a free and fairly easy to use option.
VueScan
This software is extremely popular though I found it to be more focused on image scanning than multi-page document scanning. A free trial is available and purchase cost is $40-$80. It does support a vast number of scanners – including numerous older scanners for which other software is unavailable.
PaperPort
The “standard” in document scanning and management, pricing starts at $200, though it is sometimes bundled for free with scanners (usually an older version). It isn’t bad, but I prefer Lucion’s FileCenter.
FileCenter
Of all the applications I have encountered for document scanning and management, FileCenter is my favorite – even over PaperPort. That said, it does cost $50 for their standard edition and $200 for their professional edition. A free trial is available.
Presto! Page Manager
This software looks interesting mainly b/c it integrates with Google Docs and Evernote. Price starts at $100.
ABBYY FineReader Express
I used some of Abbyy’s software years ago and enjoyed it, I imagine it is still of the same quality as I know it is quite popular. Software pricing begins at $50.
Advanced Scan to PDF Free
Simple, free, and easy to use – if you are doing document scanning and the price FREE is right, this is probably the best option.
OfficeDrop
This is a freemium service, they used to offer desktop software (which was buggy) but appear to have dropped the desktop software in favor of mobile apps and document management. That is unfortunate.
Simple Doc Organizer
I’m not familiar with this software, but the site looks nice and they have a Home edition that is available for free.
Other Options
These are other options that aren’t incredibly expensive but I have no personal experience with…
- Office Gemini’s Dokmee Document Management System.
- Kodak Document Scanning Software.
- eDoc.
- Neat.
- Readiris – Pricing starts at $130. Trial is available.
- eDocOrganizer – Pricing starts at $120.
- Quest RemoteScan – This company is now owned by Dell. Pricing starts at $179 and includes 10 clients (users).
- FreeOCR – Is free, focused on OCR of scanned documents, but appears to allow for scanning as well.
- FileHold – Couldn’t find pricing.
- Sohodox – $199 for a single user.
Holy Snikes You Are Expensive
I didn’t feel like reviewing the really expensive options (e.g. above $500), but I’ve included links to some of them for those who are so inclined…
- Kofax Express.
- PSI: Capture Enterprise – Couldn’t find any pricing, this usually means its the big bucks.
- SimpleIndex.
- iDatix – Couldn’t find any pricing, maybe expensive?