Open-Source Scanner App Scans Documents into PDF

The Canon PIXMA printer that I have been using comes with a special software called Canon MP Navigator EX. This software allows for the easy saving, printing, or editing for the scanned images. It is connected to the “Scan” button on the printer and saves the scanned documents in either PDF files or PNG image files.

Now this same feature is available for the owners of all kind of scanners through an open-source UWP app called Scanner. It works with all the scanners (or printers with scan feature) that have WIA driver compatibility. Basically, any printer bought in last ten to fifteen  years because WIA technology has been around for a while now. It supports both old fashioned wired and new wireless scanners.

Scanner can scan both the documents and photographs. Depending on what is being scanned you can choose to save it as a PDF file or as an image file. The images can be saved in JPG, PNG, TIF, or BMP formats. After scanning the document, we can easily edit the images.

Scanner app for Windows

In the Scanner app interface, we can choose the scanner type – flatbed, feeder or make it auto-configure the type of scanner/printer in use. After connecting the scanner with the computer using a cable or the wireless network, we can place a document to be scanned in the scanner bed. In the Scanner app, we can choose whether we want grayscale, color or monochrome scanning. We can also choose the DPI setting for scanning. A higher DPI means large size files and a much higher resolution.

If you are scanning multiple documents, then you can choose to combine them all into a single PDF file. This way you can successfully scan an entire book into a single PDF file.

You can download the open-source scanner app for Windows from https://github.com/simon-knuth/scanner.