How to Scan a Document Into Word (8 Steps)

Make sure your computer and your scanner are on and in proper working order. Your scanner should have the latest drivers installed. This will help it to best handle the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program, which translates images to text. Your computer should be free of viruses and spyware.
Most computer scanners come with an OCR application. In the unlikely event that you don't have one, download and install an OCR program. SimpleOCR (simpleocr.com) is free to download and it can handle virtually any simple scanner to Word transfers.
Now that you are prepared to work with the actual document, place it into your scanner. If you have a document feeder your material needs to be face up, and the top of the pages should face the feeder. If not, or if your material is not in a single page form then place it under the lid on the scanner glass, in the upper right-hand corner. Scan and save the file.
Open the image. Save the image in the TIFF format by selecting 'Save as' from the 'File' menu and name it with a 'TIFF' format.
Navigate to the 'Start' menu and select 'Programs,' 'Microsoft Office Tools' and 'Microsoft Office Document Imaging.'
From the 'File' menu, select 'Open' to open your scanned document that has been saved in the *.TIFF format.
From the 'Tools' menu, select 'Send Text to Word.' A prompt will indicate that this process will take time. Click 'OK' to confirm. Depending on your computer's speed, the process will take anywhere from a few moments to a minute or two.
When the process is done, Microsoft Word will automatically load your document, which you can edit and format as you please.