Scanning is a common way to digitize paper media such as documents and photographs. Usually, a noisy and slow stationary device is used for this, which cannot be called portable. At the same time, a smartphone combined with a special application is not inferior to a home scanner. There is only one difference - scanning using a smartphone does not require preliminary preparation and is performed instantly - just point the camera and take a picture. About the best scanner apps in today's selection.
CamScanner is the most downloaded scanner app in Google play stands out for its rich and well-thought-out functionality. The scanning process is simplified as much as possible. So, a photo of a document can be imported from the gallery, or captured using your own camera interface, supplemented with special functions. Among them: grid, level, flash switch to flashlight mode. Supports both scanning single page documents and batch mode... which allows you to take several pictures in a row at once. In addition, presets are available for scanning identity documents and presentations.
Once captured, CamScanner automatically detects document boundaries and corrects perspective. To correct uneven lighting and paper texture, 5 filters and auto mode... Manual correction of scan brightness and contrast is available. The finished document can be saved as an image or in PDF. The original image is stored in memory and available for reprocessing. The application also supports text recognition, but the program perceives Russian-language text disgustingly.
Additionally, the application is equipped with tools for organizing documents: notes, tags, password protection and its own cloud storage for reserve copy and sync documents between devices. After registration, 200MB of storage is available, which can be expanded for free by inviting friends to join CamScanner.
The free version of CamScanner adds a "Scanned by CamScanner" footer to PDF documents and displays unobtrusive ads. The premium version for 212 rubles per month or 2129 rubles per year disables ads and adds the following features: editing recognized text, creating collages from multi-page documents, additional 10 GB in the cloud, support for third-party cloud storage and other add-ons.
Office Lens is a pocket-sized smartphone scanner from Microsoft. It uses its own camera interface, which defines the boundaries of the document on the fly - looks impressive! You can import a previously taken photo from the gallery.
I want to note good work automatic definition of the boundaries of the scanned area and a perspective corrector. Office Lens supports four modes: Document, Slideboard, Business Card, and Photo. Moreover, the latter does not imply processing and correction of perspective, but preserves the original image. In general, the filters work correctly, but there are not enough additional settings and B / W presets.
The finished scan can be saved as an image or PDF file in the device memory, or exported to a OneNote note. In addition, Office Lens can upload the result in Word or PowerPoint format directly to the OneDrive cloud. Also declared support for text recognition, but the function does not work correctly.
Office Lens - Lightweight free scanner... There is no embedded advertising, the service was created to popularize other Microsoft products. Let the functionality of the application lag behind competitors with paid subscription, but the interface is not overloaded and the speed of work is at altitude.
Scanbot is a good alternative to previous services. The developers have gone further. In addition to determining the boundaries of the document on the fly, the application gives hints during shooting, for example, that you need to correct the horizon or bring your smartphone closer. The shutter release is also automated - aim, align according to the prompts and get a ready frame! The image can be imported from the gallery, however, we encountered a strange limitation. For multi-page documents, the application does not allow shooting part of the documents using the built-in camera interface, and exporting the second part from the gallery.
Free version 4 types of filters are offered: two color and two black-and-white. There is no possibility to manually adjust contrast, saturation, or processing intensity. The finished document is saved in PDF or JPG format.
The main advantage of Scanbot is the synchronization of scans between devices using a Google account. In addition, the application can automatically upload documents to cloud storage or notes. The list of supported services is surprisingly wide: Google drive, OneDrive, DropBox, Yandex Disk, Evernote, Todolist, OneNote and many others. Additionally, synchronization with a remote FTP server is available.
An unusual feature is the ability to send faxes directly from the application. One shipment will cost 129 rubles, however, buying a subscription helps you save a lot.
Adobe is one of the most competent companies in the creation and promotion of graphic editors. And in recent times a team from California is actively developing mobile platforms, Adobe Scan - one of the latest developments. Just like other scanners in this collection, the application uses its own camera interface. Auto capture is supported, however, the speed of document search is inferior to competitors in the face of Office Lens and Scanbot. However, the developers have provided for disabling automatic shooting and added the ability to import ready-made images from the gallery. The quality of automatic document boundary detection is also lame.
With post-processing, Adobe Scan is in complete order - you can feel the company's many years of experience in creating graphic editors. There are 3 modes to choose from: board, automatic color, or black and white. If desired, you can save the frame with the corrected perspective, but without additional processing. The quality of the filters is excellent, the scans look quite natural. The finished document is saved in PDF format. You cannot add, delete, or reorder pages of a saved document; the listed actions are available only at the stage of file creation.
Like other products of the company, Adobe Scan uploads documents to its own cloud. You can log in to the system using account Adobe Cloud, google accountor Facebook. After registration, the program will ask you to indicate your date of birth. Be careful, sync with the cloud via mobile data is activated by default! To disable this option, you must uncheck the corresponding box in the application settings. The service also supports text recognition. The Russian language is on the list, but the recognition quality is poor - instead of the associated text, a set of characters is obtained. FROM with Latin letters Adobe Scan does a much better job - after recognition, it is enough to fix a tolerable number of errors.
Adobe Scan is free, there are no banner ads in the application. There are only mentions of a PDF viewing and editing application that complements the capabilities of Adobe Scan. For example, it adds the ability to insert comments or highlight text using a virtual marker. Available, including sorting pages in the finished PDF-file, but only with a paid subscription of Acrobat Pro DC for 1643 rubles per month.
One of the most popular scan with camera apps for android is Tiny Scanner... Its main advantage is maximum simplicity and only the most popular functions. In the built-in camera interface, only flash control is available and nothing more. At the same time, Tiny Scanner quite correctly determines the boundaries of the document in automatic mode.
Post-processing modes let you work with images and text in color or grayscale. Filters for processing text have five contrast levels. Any additional sliders for fine tuning the finished result is not provided, however, the automation works out as expected. The result is saved in PDF or as pictures. There are three compression ratios to choose from. You can re-sort, add, or delete scanned pages at any time, even after saving the PDF file.
Organizing documents in the application menu is carried out using familiar folders, instead of tags that are used by other scanners from the collection. The application interface can be protected with a pin code, there is no fingerprint scanner support.
Support cloud services, as well as synchronization between devices, no. But Tiny Scanner allows you to expand a local drive, which can be opened from the browser of any device connected to the same network. A good bonus for users who do not want to trust their important data to cloud storage!
Tiny Scanner - free app, embedded ads were not found during testing. Of the shortcomings - incomplete Russification, the menu contains items on english language... There are not so many of them, and the meaning is clear without translation, but the applications of competitors have complete and high-quality Russification!
You don't need to use Canon's original scanning software to get quality scans.
Although they give a very positive result, among the software products presented to users, there are many good analogs that deserve attention.
Some of them are distributed free of charge, and some require some costs, depending on the functionality they provide.
Variety of assortment and special requirements for it
Document recognition different types recently it has become a real necessity due to the fact that they have become more in demand than paper originals.
This is due to the fact that they are much more convenient to store, transfer, and sometimes process.
That is why the quality of the received digital copies becomes the main selection criterion. software tools used, including with the popular Canon brand technology.
Unfortunately, not all software vendors can please users.
One of the most common problems among products is the lack of regional settings, such as the Russian-language interface, which is a special criterion in the domestic space.
And there are many such criteria.
Certain foods do better at handling graphic information, others are more suitable for working with texts, including those containing several different ones.
In parallel with them, there are other programs and utilities, including those that perfectly cope with information presented in tabular form.
We have already identified a number of full-fledged software systems and quite simple utilities that satisfy a number of user requirements and, as a result, this list includes:
- Canon MF Toolbox;
- ABBYY FineReader 10 Home Edition;
- OCR CuneiForm;
- Scanitto Pro;
- VueScan;
- PaperScan;
Canon MF Toolbox
It is worth starting the review of the models with a proprietary application of the Canon trademark, namely MF Toolbox. Its main drawback is that there is no Russian-language version of it.
The entire interface through which the user interacts with data is in English.
However, this disadvantage is more than compensated by the advantages software product, and he has a lot of them.
Firstly, this is the low weight of the application, which is only 9.5 MB, which is reflected in a good way in its download and operating speed.
Second, the application is free and comes with the hardware manufacturer, which guarantees compatibility checks.
The application works in conjunction with Windows OS, which will be noted by the lion's share of office equipment users.
Despite this, working with it is quite fast, and a couple of clicks are enough to scan.
An additional advantage of the program is the ability to save.
Such functionality gives an advantage, first of all, not even in convenience, but in saving time spent on converting from one file format to another.
The set of formats consists of the most popular, so MF Toolbox allows you to cover a large number of basic user needs.
In case the document needs to be corrected, you can use a customized set of editors, and for fast transfer scans, you can use the quick send option.
Figure: 3 - ABBYY FineReader window
OCR CuneiForm
CuneiForm OCR can also be used with Canon scanners. It is a small utility with quite powerful functionality. Its main purpose is to scan richly formatted texts.
The developers have made sure that the utility is able to recognize any fonts and does not violate the original structure of the document.
In this case, the recognized document can be transferred to or saved in one of the specified formats, including graphic.
Please note: the utility publishes updates regularly enough, so it will work even in the newest versions of operating systems.
A special bonus for text recognition is the spell check. A specially developed dictionary helps in this.
The program has a number of key benefits, which can be safely attributed to the Russian-language interface, as well as the presence free license.
Figure: 4 - Working with OCR CuneiForm
Scanitto Pro
Some scanning programs have one drawback - after digitizing the document, they instantly save the received data to a file without the possibility of adding data.
The Scanitto Pro utility lacks it. It enables the user to create digital data in a multipage format such as PDF.
If the user needs to edit the received text, it is allowed to save it in tiff format.
It opens with many programs, including free ones, which expands the range of data manipulation.
In addition, the program allows you to save data in graphic formats... These include jpeg, png, jp2 and bmp.
If, for example, you need to correct the resulting image, you can use special functions for its correction.
In their list, the developers included the adjustment of saturation, brightness and contrast of the picture from a Canon scanner.
The digitization of documents is fast enough. In this case, the procedure can even be further shortened by using the option to adjust the size of the scanned area.
The interface implemented with russified menus should not be underestimated either, since a number of users will not be able to use the program in the absence of russification.
Figure: 5 - Scanitto Pro window
VueScan
In the case when you have to work on old Canon scanners, also with outdated operating systems, the digitization process can turn into torture.
However, the VueScan utility avoids this. It is compatible with a huge number of scanner models, which makes it simply irreplaceable.
In particular, it is worth highlighting the following Canon models: E510, MG2200, MG3200, MG4200, MG5400, MG6300, MP230, PIE PrimeFilm 7200.
A feature of working with it is fast connection to the scanning device, as well as advanced user settings when digitizing images.
The last option is especially important when restoring old photographs, which the program copes with excellently.
You can manually adjust not only the contrast of the image, but also the color rendition and even the compression ratio of the resulting scan.
The first is used when saving images, the second is used for text, and the third is for both types of data.
There are a couple more drawbacks to this utility.
Firstly, it does not provide the user with a Russian-language interface in all versions, and secondly, it can be used free of charge only for a limited period of time.
Later versions of the utility make it possible to scan even semi-transparent slides, they also support text format TXT, and for image processing have built-in editing tools.
Figure: 6 - Working with VueScan
Today, many documents are saved in pdf format. it is very convenient. It provides the ability to save a document regardless of which program was used to create it. Such files are available for viewing on any device.
How to scan to PDF - method 1
In order to scan a document and leave it in the memory of your computer in pdf format, you need to follow these steps.
- Connect the scanning device to personal computer... This is done either via the network or via a USB cable. Wait for the system to finish installing the required drivers.
- To add a network scanner, you need to connect it to local network... Then, through the control panel, go to "devices and printers".
- Go to the Add Printer section.
- In the proposed list, find required device and follow the further instructions of the system for its final connection.
- Place the desired document in the connected device, paying attention to the markings to ensure that it is in the correct position.
- Set the output format to "pdf". This is done using a small display built into the scanner.
- Click the "Start" button to start the scanning process. A corresponding notification will be displayed on the screen. Not all scanner models allow launch in this way. Sometimes it may require additional software... The following applications are suitable:
- Adobe Acrobat;
- "Not Another PDF Scanner 2".
- After the process is completed, the system will display another message about its successful completion. The document is automatically saved to your PC. You need to search for it in the "Images" or "Documents" sections on local disk... Most often, such documents are named in the form of their creation date.
How to scan to PDF - method 2
For operating system Mac OS X instructions are slightly different. Let's consider in more detail.
- Make sure your device has updates for the correct drivers.
- Place the document in the device accordingly.
- Go to "Programs", find and launch the "Image Capture" application.
- In the window that opens, click "Show details" and select the desired size for the document, select pdf in the formats section.
- Enter the file name in the appropriate field.
- Specify the path where the file will be saved.
- Click "Start" to start the process.
- After its completion, the system will notify the user about it.
It was pretty good and detailed about this file format and operations with it.
It is pretty good because the scanned documents and files are ultimately smaller than the scanned image (about 3-5 times). This is one of its advantages.
The second plus is the ability to combine scanned files into one. Of course, you can combine them in Word, but looking at the first plus, you can refuse it. Especially if the files contain not only text, but also images.
One way or another, but in this article we will consider programs specially designed for this necessary task - to scan and combine files into one pdf document.
The first is Scan2PDF, a German product.
A miracle, not a program. Here are its advantages:
Of the shortcomings, it can be noted that no windows support 8 and something that hasn't been updated since 2005.
So, on to the guide.
After installation and launch, the following main program window will appear:
We immediately click on the menu Options and choose Options =)
In field Languages choose Russian and the program window will immediately transform - it will be translated into Russian. It remains only to close it with a button Close:
Now the program has become in Russian and quite understandable:
The purpose of the buttons, I think, is not worth describing, they are clear there and from the image, and hints pop up.
The program window in operation is shown below:
Want to save time typing text? An irreplaceable assistant there will be a scanner. After all, to type a page of text, it takes 5-10 minutes, and scanning will take only 30 seconds. For high-quality and fast scanning, you will need auxiliary program... Its functions should include: working with text and graphic documents, editing the copied image and saving in the desired format.
Among the programs in this category ScanLite differs in a small set of functions, but it is possible to scan documents in large volumes. You can scan a document with the press of one key and then save it to pDF format or JPG.
Scanitto Pro
The next program is Scanitto Pro free program for scanning documents.
The minus in this program is that it does not work with all types of scanners.
Naps2
application Naps2 has flexible options. When scanning Naps2 uses TWAIN and WIA drivers. Here you also have the ability to specify the title, author, topic and keywords.
Another positive function would be transmission PDF file by email.
PaperScan
PaperScan Is a free software for scanning documents. Compared to other similar utilities, it can remove unnecessary border traces.
It also has convenient functions for deeper image editing. The program is compatible with all types of scanners.
Its interface is in English and French only.
Scan Corrector A4
An interesting feature Scan Corrector A4 is to set the boundaries of the scan area. Full A4 scanning ensures that the aspect ratio of the file is preserved.
Unlike other similar programs Scan Corrector A4 can memorize 10 consecutively entered images.
VueScan
Program VueScan is an universal application for scanning.
The simplicity of the interface allows you to quickly get used to it and learn how to make high-quality color correction. The application is compatible with Windows and Linux operating systems.
WinScan2PDF
WinScan2PDF - this is great program to scan documents to PDF format. The utility is compatible with Windows and does not take up much space on your computer.
The disadvantages of the program are its limited functionality.
With the help of the presented programs, the user can choose the one suitable for himself. When choosing, you should pay attention to the quality, functionality and price of the program.
