Document Scanning Software.

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Historically when I’ve bought a scanner it has come with scanning software – usually an outdated version of PaperPort.

Flat-bed Scanner.
Flat-bed Scanner. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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…

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…

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