BatchScanPlus

Scanning an entire book or part of it can be a tedious chore. Even if you try to properly align the book on the scanner, the pages may still look crooked on the screen. When it comes to scanning a document, BatchScanPlus offers much more than common scanning applications, but its real strength lays in its multi-page scanning capabilities. Unlike other similar applications, BatchScanPlus handles multiple pages as a set. If you scan one page after another, the software will crop them and remove black areas, it will eliminate noise automatically and it will also number each page once you save them. The software comes with other useful tools as well, which make it an excellent scanning solution.

BatchScanPlus is free to try. A watermark, placed on your work, is the only limitation of the trial version. The software can be used on Windows XP, Vista, Win 7 and Win 8 and it provides support for almost any scanner, via Twain and WIA drivers. Downloading its setup package and installing its components should not take more than a minute, even on older machines. The hardware requirements are modest and there is no need to install any prerequisite tools.

The main user interface presents a wide range of options, on tabs, in top menus and on a tool pane. Figuring out the software's controls is not difficult. To make things easier, BatchScanPlus displays a series of "Getting started" links on the same interface. An impressive set of scanning options can be found on one of the tabs, on the right side of the interface. Before acquiring an image, you can choose a format and set the program to process and save the images automatically, to rotate them and to remove noise.

Scanned pages are numbered automatically and you can set a starting number and specify a number of digits. Numbering the pages also gives you the possibility of applying rotation settings to odd, even or all pages. Furthermore, if you scan two pages at once, you can tick two options to split them in two separate files and to rotate them after splitting. A few editing tools can be found on another tab. You can use a rectangular selection tool, a cloning brush, an eraser and a background color changer and set the program to clear or trim the image's margins.

Besides scanned pages, BatchScanPlus works with images as well. You can either import them from a local folder or retrieve them directly from a digital camera. Also, the software provides full support for RAW pictures and you can use a batch conversion utility to store them in another format, rotate and number them or apply certain effects, like sharpening, blurring, removing noise and so on. Additionally, the software is capable of converting images to PDF and it also places an OCR feature at your disposal.