Epson copier software. Free software for scanning documents

Photocopier is a program unique in its simplicity and functionality that allows you to copy various documents with one click of the mouse, having only a scanner and a printer at hand.

But, as they say, let's look at everything in order and start with goals and objectives, and end with solutions and results.

Targets and goals.

In everyday life, we often encounter the need to make copies of various documents. This can be done in two main ways: having a copier at home (or a multifunctional device, preferably a laser one) or going to the nearest “service” where we will be provided with a similar service for our hard-earned money.

So, on one of the beautiful spring evenings, I urgently needed to copy several different-sized documents, or rather, 36 pieces in number ... But what to do ?! It’s dark outside, “services” have been closed for a long time, running to someone you know is also not an option ...

Solutions.

The way out has been found! After all, I have an inkjet multifunctional device at my disposal Canon MP140(scanner, color inkjet printer/copier) and laser printer HP P1006. Joyful to this state of affairs, I started scanning and printing ... But it wasn’t there - the resulting image did not match the original, and the utilities included with the devices could not make friends between two dissimilar devices.

Of course, you can load a graphics editor, remove the margins and adjust the image size, but this option, which is acceptable for a small amount of copying, was clearly not suitable in my case. Putting aside the documents, I began to remember that somewhere, sometime, I had seen something similar to "software copier", which allows you to make friends between a scanner and a printer ... Turning to the Internet for help, I, to my great joy, almost immediately stumbled upon a wonderful program Photocopier.

Installing the program is extremely simple, as is its interface. Just look at the screenshot and it immediately becomes clear that we have a real copier!

Despite its simplicity, the program allows you to make black and white copies, copies with grayscale (black and white photo) and color copies. You can also set the size of the resulting copy to 100% or 70% of the original, set the brightness and number of copies.

It is important that the program is absolutely free!!!

Result.

When I started copying, I was surprised - the very first copy completely corresponded to the original, while the program did not ask for any additional parameters! The only thing to remember in my case is to use the “default” laser printer, since the program automatically prints to the “default” printer, and it is likely that the inkjet printer is installed in the system. If you use an ordinary scanner and printer, then everything is set up automatically there.

Conclusion which can be done: Photocopier- a wonderful program, both simple and functional, in some cases even indispensable - one click and a copy of the document is already printed on the printer! For those who find the functionality of this version not enough, there is a more “advanced” version - Photocopier Pro, which has a number of additional, finer settings. But this program is already paid - after installation it will work for 30 days, after which it will be necessary to enter the registration key.

A free program for combining a scanner and printer into a convenient copier.

Nowadays, in various organizations, they are increasingly talking about the introduction of electronic document management. However, in reality, it rarely comes to this and, as a result, you have to fiddle with a whole pile of papers again and again. At the same time, documents often need to be copied in several copies, and there can be only one photocopier for the entire floor! Familiar situation?

Employees of various state institutions, I think, have faced this problem more than once and fully understand its scale. However, "I am burning" can be helped if you have at least some kind of scanner, printer and program at hand. iCopy, which allows you to "link" these two devices into a convenient copier!

Comparison of iCopy with a paid analogue of Scanitto Pro

In terms of functionality, iCopy most closely resembles the commercial scanning software Scanitto Pro:

Peculiarities	iCopy	Scanitto Pro
Price	is free	from 499 rubles
Scan driver	WIA	TWAIN
One-button copy	+	+
Multi-page copying (including from the automatic paper feeder)	+	+
Save to PDF	+	+
Saving as images	JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF	JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF, TIFF
Text recognising	-	+

The only significant drawback of iCopy, as we can see from the comparison, is the lack of a text recognition function. This, of course, is a significant minus, but we are faced with the task of simply quickly replicating copies of the document, and the program does an excellent job with this.

Installation and pre-configuration

iCopy is available in two versions: installer and portable, which does not require installation. The portable version, as you know, leaves no traces in the system and can work directly from a USB flash drive. However, the installer also has an advantage. With it, you can "bind" the scan button on your scanner to activate the iCopy copy feature! All that is needed for this is to tick the box on one of the screens during installation. "Register iCopy to scanner button":

It is worth noting that your antivirus can "swear" at the iCopy installer, so you may either have to add it to the "White List" or simply disable protection during installation.

If at least one scanner is connected to the computer, iCopy will detect it the first time and prompt you to select it as the default scanning device:

The first time the program can boot with the English interface. If you have such a problem, press the small button "Settings" in the right part of the working window and in the window that opens in the tab "General" in the drop down list "Language" indicate item "Russian (Russia)". To apply the changes, click the button "OK" and restart the program:

In fairness, it should be said that iCopy Russification leaves much to be desired... Here and there in the interface there are constantly untranslated inscriptions from English, and in some windows (for example, in "Options") only the title of the window is translated!

Since we are talking about the settings, we will take a little look at them at the same time. There are only two tabs here. On the already mentioned "General" tab, in addition to choosing the language, you don't really need to change anything else. Is it possible to activate the option of automatic page rotation with printing on both sides in the automatic feeder (if any) - "Flip duplexed pages".

On the second tab - File Settings- you can set the default folders in which scan results will be saved in PDF format and as images (by default, iCopy asks you to specify the save path before each scan):

iCopy Interface

Now let's take a closer look work window appearance icopy:

On its left side there is a large main button for starting copying, and below it there are three smaller ones:

1. Multi-page scanning- allows you to first scan all pages of the document, and then print all at once or save as a multi-page PDF file.
2. Saving as an image- activation of this button makes it possible to save each of the scanned sheets as a separate picture in JPG, PNG, GIF or BMP format of your choice.
3. Save to PDF- saves scanning results page by page or into a single multi-page (if the first button is active) PDF file.

The central part of the iCopy window is reserved for various scanning and printing options. The top section is shifted slightly to the right. Here you can select the scan and print mode, specify the paper size and the desired number of copies. By default, the scanning mode is set to "Color", but in older scanners the lamp is often set too low, as a result of which the copy will turn out to be very light and hard to read. Therefore, I recommend in such cases to set the "Text" mode for the scanner and, accordingly, "Black and White" for the printer.

There are only three checkmarks in the bottom section of the central part of the iCopy window. Of these, the last two will be inactive if your scanner is not equipped with an automatic paper feeder, since the second allows you to use it, and the third activates duplex scanning of the sheet (if such a function is supported).

The first option is "Preview". It is always available and allows you to activate scanning through the standard Windows WIA interface with the ability to view the captured image. However, if you activate this mode of operation, then the system scan settings will "interrupt" the parameters set in iCopy, so in the preview window you will need to re-select the image capture type to "Black and white picture or text":

Finally, on the right side of the iCopy window are the settings buttons. Button "Select Scanner" calls the window already familiar to us, which appeared at the first start. A similar window will appear when you click on the button "Printer Settings":

In fact, the standard interface for pre-printing printer selection and its settings is called, which can be different (depending on your particular printer).

Finally, the third button - "Image settings"- opens a window where you can adjust the scan brightness, contrast, scale, resolution and quality with sliders. The option here is also enabled by default. "Center Image", which allows you to automatically align the captured image to the center of an A4 sheet (or another one specified in the settings):

Working with iCopy

We talked about the interface and its main parameters, and now we will try to work with iCopy in practice. First we need to set the scan and print options. They, as I said, are best set to "Text" (for a scanner) and "Black and White" (for a printer) modes. We leave the paper size A4, and below in the box we indicate how many copies of each of the scanned pages we need to print. It remains only to click on the big blue button on the left and the copying process will begin:

Please note that in the screenshot above, I have the multipage copy button activated. It is not necessary to enable it, however, if it is enabled, then we have the possibility of delayed printing. That is, first we scan all the necessary pages of the document, and then we press the button and their automatic printing begins. And while everything is being printed, we are going to drink tea :)

On a more serious note, the multi-page scan mode can also be useful if we want to save all scans into a single PDF file. To do this, activate the button "Export to PDF" while keeping Delay Print active. Please note that in the status line in this mode, instead of the printer, we will have the export function. We add all the necessary pages to the future PDF document, and then click the button "Print Pages". The finished multi-page PDF file will be saved in the default folder (if you specified it in the settings) or in the directory you specified before scanning:

If you need to scan single sheets and save them as image files (JPG, BMP, PNG and GIF formats are available to choose from), it is better to turn off the multipage scanning function. Instead, activate the second button and specify the folder for saving pictures (again, if you did not specify the default path in the settings).

Advantages and disadvantages of the program

• works with almost all scanners and printers;
• support for automatic paper feeder and duplex scanning;
• the ability to "bind" the copy function to a button on the scanner (only for the installer);
• simple interface and program management;
• scan quality presets;
• multi-page scanning and delayed printing;
• the ability to save scan results in PDF (including multipage) and as graphic files (JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF).

• clumsy Russification of the interface;
• there is no native mechanism for previewing scan results (using the standard Windows WIA interface);
• there is no text recognition option.

conclusions

When I thought about what to write down as disadvantages of iCopy, I realized that it didn’t have any special disadvantages. For a program that "weighs" less than a megabyte, it can do a lot and there is no point in complaining about the clumsy translation, because even in English everything is intuitive. Naturally, a scan preview would not hurt. But, on the other hand, if you use iCopy only as a software copier, then it is not needed at all!

Well, as for text recognition, for the Russian language, alas, there is nothing better than the paid ABBYY FineReader. And it would be foolish to hope that a full-fledged . The program performs its task quite successfully, therefore, I think that iCopy is not for nothing that it bears the title of one of the best solutions for copying documents.

P.S. It is allowed to freely copy and quote this article, provided that an open active link to the source is indicated and the authorship of Ruslan Tertyshny is preserved.

To get high-quality scans, it is not necessary to use Canon branded scanning programs.

Although they give a very positive result, among the software products presented to users, there are many good analogues 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

Recognition of documents of various types has recently 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, transmit, and sometimes process.

That is why the quality of the resulting digital copies becomes the main criterion for the selection of software used, including with the popular Canon brand equipment.

Unfortunately, not all software manufacturers can please users.

One of the frequently encountered 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.

Some products are better at processing 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 do an "excellent" job with the information presented in tabular form.

We have already identified a number of full-fledged software systems and quite simple utilities that meet a number of user requirements and, as a result, this list includes:

Canon MF Toolbox

It’s worth starting a review of models with Canon’s branded application, 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 the data is in English.

However, this disadvantage is more than compensated by the advantages of the software product, and it has a lot of them.

Firstly, this is a small weight of the application, which is only 9.5 MB, which in a good way is reflected in its download and speed.

Secondly, the application is free and comes with the hardware manufacturer, which guarantees compatibility testing.

The application works in conjunction with Windows, which will be noted by the lion's share of office equipment users.

Despite this, work with it is quite fast, and a couple of clicks are enough to scan.

An additional advantage of the program can be considered 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 ones, 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 the configured set of editors, and for quick transfer of scans, you can use the quick send option.

It allows you to digitize data, edit it and print directly without launching third-party applications, which makes it simply indispensable in emergency work conditions.

The program quickly connects to the scanner and has a couple of versions, depending on what the user needs.

Each of them has its own advantages.

The PaperScan Free version has a free license, but a somewhat limited basic set of supported functions, while the PaperScan version of Scanner Professional Edition will please with more extensive tools, but the user will have to pay for it.

Both versions achieve high data compression rates up to the JBIG2 level, which facilitates their transfer and does not affect the quality of the final image.

At the same time, both versions have a common drawback - the lack of Russian-language menu commands. However, this will not be a tangible problem if you speak English at a basic level.

A bonus for any user will be the function of auto-rotation and alignment of documents without the need to re-scan them, as well as support for operating systems of the .

Rice. 7 - PaperScan Professional Edition

RiDoc

Some utilities designed for digitization have one drawback - they, in the presence of a Russian-language interface, are unable to qualitatively recognize Russian-language texts, RiDoc is not one of them.

She perceives the text in both Russian and other languages ​​with sufficient quality.

It is also worth noting that the utility can leave watermarks on digitized copies and can be used for free during a one-month trial period.

After that, you will need to pay for a license, but as a result, the user will receive even wider functionality.

The advantages include data compression after digitization without loss of quality, as well as the possibility of batch processing of documents.

After scanning, the data can be converted, and then saved or sent to the recipient by e-mail. ABBYY FineReader , which provide the widest possible range of functions and operations with digitized data.

In it, users will find software tools for high-quality digitization of photos, and for fast text recognition in any language.

However, it is not necessary to pay for such software products.

Some of them are distributed with a free license, which is especially important for users who do not professionally digitize.

In our selection, we reviewed a list of the most popular text scanning programs. An important factor for programs in this category is the ability to decrypt the text of documents, as well as the quality of scanning - it is necessary that the information be completely readable, and the image scanner clearly transmits each line of the image into the document.

Some applications have Russian-language design, which can be another significant factor when choosing the best scanning program. Therefore, let's once again take a quick look at the following programs that are able to properly recognize text and scan a document to a file:

The computer program ABBYY FineReader 10 Home is one of the most common document scanning tools. Able to quickly and efficiently find blocks, translate text written in different languages. The advantage of ABBYY FineReader is the presence of an impressive language base. Do not forget about the availability of a version with advanced features Professional.

CuneiForm's OCR stands out from the competition with good photographic text grabbing performance. It is noteworthy that a photo can be taken even with a 2MP camera of some fairly outdated mobile device. The program boasts a dictionary check function, which guarantees a high degree of informational quality of the finished material.

Scanitto Pro will perfectly cope with the narrower specifics of work. The application recognizes the text very quickly and can save it in the required document format. It is noteworthy that the program can find a given area of ​​the paper medium and improve the display of the material before saving to the storage medium. There is a function of carrying out scanning by one click of a key.

VueScan has a strong base of comparable scanner devices. Among analogues, the program demonstrates the highest rates of connection to the scanner. Of the additional pleasant options, it is worth noting the convenience of manual color adjustment.

When choosing free document scanning programs, you should pay attention to PaperScan Free. The utility is quite simple in terms of functionality, on the other hand, it performs all the necessary scanning options, in addition, you will appreciate the unique compression technology that can significantly reduce the file size, leaving the original display quality. If you like the Free version, you can always purchase the extended Professional version with more impressive functionality.

RiDoc is another fairly powerful scanning tool. It is worth noting that Reedok includes a specialized tool for reducing file sizes without a noticeable deterioration in the appearance of the display. The information remains readable. If necessary, the RiDoc document scanner will help you export document formats to graphic extensions. The program can set watermarks on the finished material and send the document by mail.

Note that we did not consider standard tools - software from manufacturers, such as HP Scan, as well as applications whose main functions are aimed at solving other problems: Adobe Reader scanner, Nitro Pro. There is also BlindScanner, created to organize access to scanning devices over a network from different portable computers.

Also, the portable utility Winscan2pdf Portable was not included in the rating. It works without installation into the operating system, but lacks many necessary functions, in particular, it does not allow changing formatting, does not print, does not recognize words. But with ease of use, everything is in order here. It is enough to run it, select a folder in the dialog box and click on the "Scan" button. However, for this to work, you need that the virtual printer is not disabled in the OS!

Note that we considered only solutions for PC - applications for Android were not included in the review. You can choose and download from Google Play any you like. Their algorithm of work is approximately the same. And all they allow you to do is to digitize a sheet of paper in PDF format using a smartphone or tablet camera. To start scanning, all you need to do is take a photo. It will not be possible to fully process it or translate it into text. Some programs, of course, have a mode for converting digital photos into text format, but desktop solutions do this much better.

Greetings to all SoftHardWare readers! Scanning documents has become a common practice in our lives. Everyone knows perfectly well that this way you can complete certain tasks efficiently and quickly. It is unlikely that there is a person who, instead of a convenient and simple scanner, would prefer a typewriter. Sometimes we are faced with the need to scan documents when preparing papers, at work, if necessary, send a document by mail and in a host of other situations.
Free software for scanning documents make it easy to do exactly what we need.

Such programs are called OCR applications. OCR is a program that converts images of various documents into text that can be processed and then edited in editors. Known are such document scanning software like: RiDoc, ABBYY Finereader, Scanitto, BlindScanner, OCRUNEIFORM, VueScan and many more.

UPD: This article was written back in 2013, so the article contains outdated information about the freeness of some programs. I have compiled a new selection of completely free applications, which is available in the article - The best free document scanning software.

Ridoc

RiDoc allows you to scan documents. Using a scanner, you can get a document in an electronic version and reduce the file size without losing its informational quality.

RiDoc allows you to conveniently arrange documents, get galleries of scanned files, and then print the results of gluing on a printer.

ABBYY Finereader

ABBYY Finereader can recognize high quality texts and save source files. There are three versions of the program: Professional, Home and Corporate Edition. Each of the programs differs in appearance, technical capabilities and price.

You can recognize text from a book and edit it using the Home version. Corporate supports accessibility features and network scanners for multiple users to work simultaneously. All versions of this program can recognize texts from 200 languages! Later versions of the program allow you to recognize pictures taken from digital cameras.

Scanitto

Free Document Scanning Software Scanitto is suitable for reading images and text and saving this result in a convenient format. The program has a useful function of direct printing to a connected printer. Scanitoo is fast and lightweight and not overloaded with unnecessary features. An improved version of this program is called Scanitto Pro.

It supports almost all scanner models. If you have a scanner, then Scanitto Pro can make a copy with one click. Also, there is a convenient image cropping function.

blindscanner

BlindScanner is designed specifically for scanning documents over a network. It allows you to open access to a device that is not nearby, but, for example, in a neighboring office.

With this program, the scanner is available to multiple users at the same time. BlindScanner supports autosampler, compresses and saves images in different formats.

CuneiForm

CuneiForm fast free document scanning software. This program provides high-quality reading of information from 20 languages ​​and recognizes mixed text.

VueScan

VueScan works with Nikon, HP, Canon slide scanners. Supports both manual and automatic settings. The program has many different filters, automatically eliminates defects and uses a multi-pass reading option to reduce scanner noise.

I think you now have a clear picture regarding free document scanning software, and when choosing a program for this task, you will not have problems.

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