What is the best Canon scanner software for documents?
In This Article:
- Why use different scan software than CanoScan with your Canon scanner?
- Does your choice of Canon scanning software reduce mouse clicks? Facilitate bulk scanning?
- Is the scanner software giving you a searchable file?
- Be aware of where the Canon scan software you're considering saves your files!
- Jump to our recommendation »
Canon Scanner Software Overview
Not all scanning software works equally well with Canon scanners, especially when it comes to document scanning. Different software packages vary in their effectiveness, not to mention their ease-of-use. What Pro features should you look for when picking a Canon scanning solution? Is there a good all-around choice? Absolutely. And it's FileCenter, the low-cost leader in scanning software.
We'll walk you through the features and key considerations you need to keep in mind when comparing Canon scanner software, and show you why we recommend FileCenter.
Why Use Different Scan Software than CanoScan with Your Canon Scanner?
By now you've figured out you need better scan software to use with your Canon product. Of course, the Canon comes with its own scan software, CanoScan, but its features are geared towards general-purpose, light-duty use. If you want to get the most out of your Canon scanner, you need to to upgrade to paperless scanning software that will unleash your scanner's potential, especially if you do document scanning which has a tendency to burden you with a lot of unnecessary interaction with the scanner: launching jobs, feeding in new pages, trying to merge multiple scans into a single file, replacing poorly-scanned pages, etc. Which leads to the next consideration ...
Does Your Choice of Canon Scanning Software Reduce Mouse Clicks? Facilitate Bulk Scanning?
Document scanning and bulk scanning don't have to be a chore. Canon business scanners have advanced to the point that they're incredibly fast. Any more, they're able to pull pages through faster than you can feed them in. Most of this improvement is thanks to more reliable hardware, better firmware, and a vastly improved TWAIN scanner driver. So where's the speed bump now? It's in the scanning software. Most scanning software requires an inordinate amount of effort to get the scan set up and launched. And even once the scan is done, you're often left with a list of scans that need to be named and filed away. Or if you did a large document that couldn't be scanned in one pass, you're now left trying to figure out how to stitch a bunch of files together into a single file.
This is where Pro scanning software shines. A good solution will go out of its way to trim down and automate the scanning process as much as possible. For example, one essential feature is scanning profiles, which lets you set up your most commonly-used scanning preferences in advance. When it's time to scan, just select the profile you want to use from a list. That can save you a lot of tedium, unnecessary mouse clicks, and mistakes, especially if the documents you scan vary widely. Good Canon scanning software will also combine the act of scanning with the act of saving, allowing you to scan and file away a document in one action. Pro scanning software will also provide bulk scanning features, like automatic document separation and even automatic routing, which makes it possible to scan, name, and save entire stacks of documents with just a couple of mouse clicks. Make sure that your software choice has features to facilitate your workflow.
Is the Scanner Software Giving You a Searchable File?
Scanners make pictures. Plain and simple. Even if you scan a document, and even if you can see words in the scan, all that your computer sees is a picture. So what if you need to be able to search the body of this document in the future? You will have to make the scan searchable.
Canon scanner software lacks the ability to do this. In fact, making a scanned document searchable requires two extra steps that other scanner software may or may not do (but probably not). You need to convert that scanned document to a PDF file, and you must then perform Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to turn the pictures of words into real words that can be searched. Sound technical? It is. And tedious. And time-consuming. Which is why you shouldn't have to worry about it. A Pro solution like FileCenter will automatically take care of all of this for you, without a single mouse-click on your part.
Be Aware of Where the Canon Scan Software You're Considering Saves Your Files!
Many users fail to realize that the scan software they're using is saving all of those scans into a database rather than as Windows files. What's the problem with that? Fast forward a year. The user decides to switch to different scan software and discovers, to their horror, that all of their scans are locked in a database and they can't get the scans out. Or worse still, the database becomes corrupt and all of their scans are lost.
There is only one way you should ever save your scans: as regular Windows files in regular Windows folders. Regardless of what version of Windows you use – Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, etc. – this is the only way to guarantee yourself full access to your scans in the future. FileCenter, for one, always saves your scans as regular Windows files in regular Windows folders. But it also goes a step further: FileCenter gives you an easy file cabinet interface that makes organizing and finding your scans a snap. A nice additional benefit – you can put the rest of your files, like Word documents, spreadsheets, and digitil photos there too.
Our Recommended Canon Scanner Software
FileCenter document scanning software goes out of its way to make Canon scanning not just easy, but highly efficient, whether you scan one document a day or hundreds. With full support for searchable PDF, many tools for facilitating bulk scanning, a built-in PDF editor, and a clean interface that users rave about, FileCenter can take you all the way from being smothered in paper to a paperless office. Download a free trial today!
