Scanning Business Cards

Before ABBYY Business Card Reader can start capturing contacts, you need to load the images of business cards into the application. One of the ways to turn business cards into images is to scan them.

You can use either an ordinary flatbed scanner or a dedicated business card scanner.

Scanning business cards with a flatbed scanner:

  1. Make sure that your scanner is properly connected and turn it on.

    Important! Be sure to install the software supplied with your scanner and required for its operation. See your scanner documentation for detailed instructions on scanner set-up.

  2. Place the business cards on the glass pane of your scanner. See Some Tips on Positioning Your Business Cards on the Scanner for advice on how to position your business cards on the glass for best results.
  3. On the main toolbar, click Scan. Alternatively, on the Quick Tasks panel, click the Scan or Scan to Outlook button.

    In the scanning dialog box, review and, if necessary, adjust the following scanning options:

    • Name (click the Change Scanner button to select a different scanner)
    • Brightness (see Adjusting Brightness for details)

    • Tip: Follow the recommendations on positioning business cards on the scanner displayed in the How to scan field.

  4. To preview the image, click the Preview button. If required, adjust the scanning area by moving its borders.

    Note: Selecting the correct scanning area can greatly reduce the scanning and capture times.

  5. Click Scan to start scanning your cards.

Once the scanning is finished, data capture starts automatically.

Note:

  1. While the contacts are being captured, a progress bar is displayed, with a Stop button next to it. Clicking this button will stop the process.
  2. If your scanner is for some reason incompatible with ABBYY Business Card Reader, a corresponding message will be displayed after you click Scan on the main toolbar or on the Quick Tasks panel. If this is the case, you can scan the business cards with the software supplied with your scanner, save the images in one of the supported image files, and then open them in ABBYY Business Card Reader.

Scanning business cards with a business card scanner:

  1. Make sure that your business card scanner is properly connected and turn it on.
  2. On the main toolbar, click Scan. Alternatively, on the Quick Tasks panel, click the Scan or Scan to Outlook button.

    In the scanning dialog box, review and, if necessary, adjust the following scanning options:

    • Name (click the Change Scanner button to select a different scanner)
    • Brightness
  3. Feed a business card into the scanner and click the Scan button in the scanning dialog box. Once the business card is scanned, its image will appear in the preview area.
  4. Feed the next business cards into the scanner, click the Scan New Card button in the scanning dialog box, and wait until its image appears in the preview area. Repeat this step for all of your remaining business cards to be captured. The total number of cards scanned is displayed in the Scanned field.
  5. Once all the cards are scanned, click the Process Cards to capture the data.