Document scan app

[richard7893]

Hello all,

Could anyone suggest a good and free document scan app. I have a wireless printer/scanner and want to use its scanning functions, but image capture is frustrating me so far and I don't have the patience to learn how to use it the way I want it to work.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[MacInTO]

I have a wireless Brother all in one and I use the app that came with the device. It works well for me.

 

[LaMonte]

I have a wireless Brother all in one and I use the app that came with the device. It works well for me.

I use ScanSnap iX500 Document Scanner, it comes with great software such as Abbyy FineReader. I have tried them all this is by far the best for me.

 

[ftaok]

What model of scanner? What macOS version?

 

[LaMonte]

What model of scanner? What macOS version?

I am using OS X El Capitan Version 10.11.6 on a 2011 Macbook Pro i7, 16GB memory, 512 SSD Drive.

Fujitsu ScanSnap ix500, works on Mac or Windows. I have had the ScanSnap for about two years now, and it has yet to let me down. It works very well and is fast and accurate. I really do enjoy it!

 

[jaybar]

VueScan

 

[richard7893]

OK well the best thing I found to do was to do this:

System Preferences> Printers & Scanners>Scan >Open Scanner

I have a Pixma MX 490 Canon printer. This scanner interface is better than ImageCapture to me.

 

[Arran]

If you have an iPhone get "Scanner Pro" by Readdle (free).

I use it every week for expense receipts. It takes me about 30 seconds to scan 6-7 pages into a pdf that I email to myself straight from the app.

I also have an expensive Brother printer/scanner right beside me that I never use. That tells you all you need to know.

 

[Michael Anthony]

I use Image Capture which comes with Mac OS.

 

[richard7893]

I use Image Capture which comes with Mac OS.

ImageCapture is very frustrating, it does an overview scan each time i open which is completely unnecessary. I don't want the system doing this. A simple scanned image outputs a huge file size, I just want something free and easy. I didnt seem to run into this problem when finding a scanning app on my linux.

 

[steve23094]

If you have an iPhone get "Scanner Pro" by Readdle (free).

I use it every week for expense receipts. It takes me about 30 seconds to scan 6-7 pages into a pdf that I email to myself straight from the app.

I also have an expensive Brother printer/scanner right beside me that I never use. That tells you all you need to know.

I don't recommend Scanner Pro.

The reviews on the App Store are clearly all written by people who have just downloaded the app, it's really quite good when you first start to use it. But in the end the app will eventually lose the link to your documents with no way to re-sync them back to the app. This has now happened to my scanned documents three times over several years due to a nasty bug somewhere. I have contacted Readdle about it and gone through the Helpdesk each time and in the end their answer is to shrug their shoulders and say there is nothing they can do about it. They clearly don't have a clue how to fix it.

Years ago I recommended they provide a way to relink documents, have they ever implemented it? Have they heck.

Scanner Pro is fine for trivial stuff, but for important documents you need an app that is much more robust.

 

[GerritV]

I don't recommend Scanner Pro.

The reviews on the App Store are clearly all written by people who have just downloaded the app, it's really quite good when you first start to use it. But in the end the app will eventually lose the link to your documents with no way to re-sync them back to the app. This has now happened to my scanned documents three times over several years due to a nasty bug somewhere. I have contacted Readdle about it and gone through the Helpdesk each time and in the end their answer is to shrug their shoulders and say there is nothing they can do about it. They clearly don't have a clue how to fix it.

Years ago I recommended they provide a way to relink documents, have they ever implemented it? Have they heck.

Scanner Pro is fine for trivial stuff, but for important documents you need an app that is much more robust.

After scanning, my files go into their proper location in my system - probably a project folder.
So, in Scanner Pro, I run a rather thin directory. Actually, I manage it somewhat like my Mail app: "INBOX ZERO"

Anyway, do you have a suggestion of a more robust app?

 

[killawat]

Devonthink Pro Office + Scansnap of your choice (S300M in my case). Its not free but, Depending on the page quality, double sided etc and whether its sequential or one big doc, I can scan OCR and file about 10 pages per minute, actually I can scan way more than that and have it queue up in devonthink if need be, I normally scan a stack of papers and let it work through the queue (which doesn't take too long). I have over 4500 pdfs scanned.

 

[richard7893]

Devonthink Pro Office + Scansnap of your choice (S300M in my case). Its not free but, Depending on the page quality, double sided etc and whether its sequential or one big doc, I can scan OCR and file about 10 pages per minute, actually I can scan way more than that and have it queue up in devonthink if need be, I normally scan a stack of papers and let it work through the queue (which doesn't take too long). I have over 4500 pdfs scanned.

Not worth me paying a dime for a scanning app. Once again, I found something for FREE on my ubuntu/linux that scans, and I never had to bring up a question about how to use it on a forum. It is very simple & I never have to make a decision about choosing between file size and image quality, the app does it for you. ImageCapture makes YOU decide this, and I end up having to make several scans to find the right tradeoff

 

[Arran]

After scanning, my files go into their proper location in my system - probably a project folder.
So, in Scanner Pro, I run a rather thin directory. Actually, I manage it somewhat like my Mail app: "INBOX ZERO"

Anyway, do you have a suggestion of a more robust app?

Yeah, I didn't even know you could "link" documents. Not sure what that even means.

I just scan to PDF's, rename them to something meaningful to me, email them to myself and then save the PDF's in the regular file system. Guess I'm not a power user? But it works for me. Simple and fast.

 

[Michael Anthony]

ImageCapture is very frustrating, it does an overview scan each time i open which is completely unnecessary.

I do agree very much with this point about Image Capture.