PaperScan 4.0.10

PaperScan is a Windows scanning application from ORPALIS that acquires pages from almost any scanner through the TWAIN or WIA driver. It cleans up the images and saves them as PDF, TIFF and other formats. It comes in three editions: a Free edition with no time limit, and the paid Home and Professional editions. The paid editions add multipage output, unlimited batches and document-processing tools.

Scanner control through TWAIN and WIA

Instead of depending on one manufacturer’s software, PaperScan talks to the scanner through the standard TWAIN or WIA protocols, so it works with most flatbeds and document feeders. When a device offers both drivers, you must use the TWAIN driver to control the document feeder. A Scan Wizard handles device selection on first use, and Quick Scan reuses the current settings for repeat jobs.

The user sets the source (flatbed or feeder), color mode, paper size, resolution, brightness, contrast and duplex where the hardware supports it. A flatbed preview shows whether the page is centered and oriented correctly. You can show the scanner’s own dialog instead of PaperScan’s settings.

Corrections during the scan

Fixes can run as pages come in: rotation based on detected text orientation, auto-deskew, black margin and punch-hole removal, and negative conversion. Automatic color detection checks whether each page is really black and white, grayscale or color and stores it at the matching bit depth. This means a text page does not take the space of a full-color image.

Batches, separators and barcodes

For stacks of paper, the Professional edition splits one scanning run into separate documents. A separator sheet placed before each document marks where a new file begins. PaperScan leaves the separator sheet out of the output. Barcodes can do the same job or supply the file name. In Rename mode the barcode value fills a %BARCODE% placeholder. In Split mode a barcode on the first or last page starts a new document. PaperScan can drop blank pages, such as empty backs of duplex scans, automatically.

When a feeder scans only one side at a time, duplex reordering interleaves a run of odd pages and a run of even pages into the correct order.

Page editing and image cleanup

Pages appear as thumbnails beside the main viewer. PaperScan saves, prints or emails only ticked thumbnails, and users reorder pages by dragging. The Home and Professional editions also import more than 100 file types, so existing images and PDFs can be combined with new scans.

PaperScan’s Image Processing tab holds despeckle, deskew, border cropping and punch-hole removal, plus brightness, contrast, saturation and gamma controls with a live preview. Pages can be converted to 1-bit black and white, grayscale or color. Black-and-white filters remove isolated dots or ruled lines, or thicken and thin characters, which can help OCR on forms. Most filters can be limited to a selected area or applied to every selected page.

Annotations and signatures

Highlighters, shapes, arrows, a freehand pen, text, sticky notes, rubber stamps, images and page-scaled rulers can be placed on any page. Annotations stay editable until they are burned into the image. The Professional edition adds a preset designer for reusable marks, such as a “Received” stamp that fills in the date, page number or user name. It also adds digital signatures made with a .pfx certificate inside a signature area drawn on the page.

OCR and output formats

OCR in PaperScan is a save option rather than a separate tool. Choosing “PDF Document + OCR” produces a searchable PDF, and recognized text can also go to Word, plain text or HTML. PaperScan can recognize several languages together, and users can download more language packs. Searchable PDF output, with more than 60 languages, belongs to the Professional edition.

PDFs can target standard PDF versions or PDF/A archival levels and carry metadata. They can use open and permission passwords and be linearized for page-by-page web viewing. Users set compression per image type: JBIG2, CCITT Group 4 or Deflate for black-and-white pages, and JPEG, JPEG 2000 or Deflate for color. The Professional edition adds Mixed Raster Content, which separates text and image layers and compresses each with a suitable method. JPEG, PNG and WEBP output is single-page only.

File names and destinations

Names can combine a base name, a counter and the date, or use templates with variables for index, date and barcode value. Files go to a Windows folder. The Professional edition can also upload to SharePoint (on-premises or Online) or attach the output to a new Outlook message. Profiles store all scan, cleanup and save settings. Users can export these profiles and switch between them for different jobs.

Free, Home and Professional editions