Simple Scanning Program

If you just want a simple scanning program to create scans from your scanner, then I recommend this.

http://naps2.sourceforge.net/

It can scan from both TWAIN and WIA scanners. These are just protocols used by scanners to communicate with the computer. TWAIN is older of the two and can be fond in both Mac and Windows PCs. WIA stands for Windows Image Acquisition. As the name implies, it is a Windows-centric protocol and therefore only found in PCs. There are other scanning protocols used by the specific scanners that are found in the driver for the scanners. This is why many scanners come with software; without this software, the computer cannot make the scans. If you have a scanner whose driver is installed just fine on your computer, but for some unknown and annoying reason, your scanning program of choice, one that does not come from the scanner manufacturer for the specific scanner, cannot detect the scanner. In short, Windows says that the scanner is detected and displayed correctly in Device Manager but when you open the Paint or Paint.NET program to tell it to scan, the scan from a device option is gray out. Most likely, the scanner is of the TWAIN variety that Paint no longer understands because it prefers to use the WIA driver model found in Windows Vista, Seven, and Eight.

This is where the NAPS2 program can help. It understands both TWAIN and WIA scanners. I was trying to scan from a Canon DR-4010c without success. Windows 7 detects and recognizes the scanner just fine, but Paint and Paint.NET refuse to scan from it. The NAPS2 program does it with simplicity and perfection.

It is a very small program, but it can do most features that a typical person wants from the scans. It does not support previews where you can adjust the scanning area. This means if the paper in question is not the typical 8.5" and 11" size, the resulting scan will have this large white frame around the document. This not a deal breaker because you can always use the Paint program to crop it afterwards. I would use Paint.NET program to crop it and (through a export to PDF plugin), save the scanned file as a PDF.

If the paper document is 8.5" and 11" or large enough to be these dimensions, then you can use NAPS2 itself to scan and save the file as PDF directly. If the scanner supports duplex, NAPS2 can do that too and save multiple scans as a single multi-page PDF. It can also save the PDF file as a single page that displays both sides of the paper document side by side aka folio. This is done if you want the PDF to be printed out on paper that can fold vertically like a birthday card.

One unexpected bonus from my testing is the PDF files this program creates are substantially smaller than those from other scanning programs. I am not sure why. I compared  the resolutions of the resulting PDF files and could not detect any degradation when zoomed in.