We live in a practically paperless, digital age, but there’s one paper product that just won’t die: The business card. Business cards are pretty much a necessity for networking, but what do you do with 800 business cards when you get home from a tradeshow? Let me guess—leave them in your bag and forget about them until the next tradeshow rolls around.
Scans and recognizes business cards, then saves contact information into Address Book or Microsoft Outlook; turns business cards into accurate digital format in a few seconds. Complete sets of management functions provided for editing of information, assigning multiple categories. Business card star designing software, Biz card maker software, Magix business card design software, Advanced business card maker, Juicy business card design software, Clickable Card design software, Page wonder, Formtec design pro, etc are some of the best card design software available for you.
Not such an effective networking tool after all. Good news: There are plenty of apps that will help you stay on top of your business card stash by (quickly) digitizing them and adding the relevant information to your virtual rolodex (your Contacts list).
We tried out five to find out which one makes the best business card butler. CamCard ( version and $3 version) is a classic.
It’s quick, accurate, and cheap, with two versions to suit different needs—its entry-level free version offers full functionality but limits your card-scanning to 200, where its premium version offers unlimited scanning. CamCard’s optical character reader (OCR) can read and digest card information in 17 different languages, including English, traditional and simplified Chinese, Japanese, Hungarian, Swedish, and Russian. CamCard is one of the fastest apps we tried—it snaps card photos automatically and flattens the photo into a readable image. It also offers a batch mode, where you can take successive snaps of multiple cards. This app is fairly accurate at translating card data to contact information, and it can read multiple layouts (though it frequently mixes up company, department, and job title).
It can automatically translate phone numbers with extensions into a phone-readable format (with commas), and it can decipher social media handles. The app has a robust web interface, where you can manage contacts (categorize or delete them, or merge duplicate cards) efficiently. On the downside,this app has trouble recognizing all-black cards and extremely glossy cards; for these cards you will need to manually snap a photo and there’s no guarantee the OCR will read them correctly. Overall, CamCard is a solid app with minor, understandable flaws.
The app features a cloud-based database that can be synced across devices, and you can also upload all contact information into your local Contacts list. CamCard also lets you upload your own card and add augmented reality features, such as a headshot or a video introduction, which other CamCard users will be able to see, should they ever scan your card. The app does let you share your card digitally with users via QR code or through its Card Radar, a feature that alerts you to nearby CamCard users. FoxCard (free with in-app purchases) is a straightforward, easy-to-use business card scanning app that can recognize cards in nine different languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, and Danish). FoxCard is just a business card scanner, not a social networking tool, so there’s no way to add digital features to your current business card or share your business card digitally with other FoxCard users. The scanner function is automatic—the app will automatically snap a photo of a card once it’s positioned correctly—and features a batch mode for snapping multiple cards. We found that FoxCard’s scanner is better at recognizing all-black and glossy cards, though its overall scanning speed is slightly slower than CamCard’s.
This app also offers better in-app management tools: You can mass- categorize, email, text, share, or delete contacts from within the app itself. While the app’s OCR is good, it’s not excellent. It frequently messes up addresses (it almost never separates the street from the city) and it occasionally places periods where there should be none.
The app’s batch mode also had a few quirks—information from some cards bled into other cards (for example, I found an address on a card where no address was listed—it was from a different card) in multiple tests. FoxCard isn’t perfect, but it is completely free. The app does feature a cloud-based database that lets you sync your contacts across multiple devices, and it also lets you save contact information directly to your device’s local Contacts list.
WorldCard Mobile (free and $7 ) is aptly-named—this business card scanner recognizes the most languages (21) of any of the apps we tested, including simplified and traditional Chinese, Czech, Slovak, and Arabic, though you will need to manually select the language of each card before you scan it. The app comes in two versions: A free version that allows you to save one contact per week, and a premium version that allows you to save unlimited contacts. Like CamCard and FoxCard, WorldCard Mobile has its own cloud-based database that can sync across multiple platforms. It can also save contacts directly to your local Contacts list and sync with Gmail/Google contacts—a handy feature for Gmail users. Unfortunately, WorldCard Mobile does not have a batch mode for snapping pictures of multiple cards at once, nor does the camera automatically take a photo when a card is properly positioned. These might seem like insignificant features, but they make a big difference when you have hundreds of business cards to digitize.
At $7, the premium version of this app (and, realistically, the only usable version) is more expensive than the other apps we tested. WorldCard Mobile is perfect for international businesspeople who like to keep their Gmail contacts up-to-date, but for everyone else it’s slower and pricier than the competition. SamCard (free and $4 ) is a simple, straightforward business card reader that scans cards and saves them to your iPhone’s local Contacts list. The app comes in two versions: SamCard Lite, which allows you to save up to three new cards to your Contacts list each week, and the premium version, which allows you to save unlimited cards to your Contacts list. The app is simple and easy to use.
Unlike the other apps in this round-up, SamCard doesn’t bother with a cloud-syncing database—you don’t have to create an account, nor do you need to worry about which contacts list(s) to save your data to. Instead, SamCard saves all of your scanned cards directly to your iPhone’s local Contacts list, and that’s it. The app also offers relatively good OCR technology that can recognize a business card’s orientation, though it did have some trouble with non-traditional layouts. The camera does not offer a batch mode or automatic picture-taking, but it does work very quickly. However, because SamCard doesn’t offer a cloud-based database, you won’t be able to sync your contacts across platforms (unless you sync your iPhone contacts across platforms). The app is also perhaps a little too simple—it doesn’t offer a batch mode, nor does it allow you to quickly manage multiple contacts at once (you’re at the mercy of Apple’s contact management system). One plus: It checks for repetition of contact names in your contacts list.
SamCard isn’t the most robust business card reader, but its simplicity is appealing. If you’re just looking to quickly add people to your Contacts list, SamCard’s camera is the snappiest (even without batch mode or automatic snapping). ScanBizCards (free, $1, and enterprise version) is a business card scanning app from CircleBack that offers unlimited scanning in its free app (but limited contact list syncs), as well as some other features such as manual card transcriptions and calendar integrations. The app comes in three versions: A Lite version, which is free and lets you scan unlimited business cards; a premium version for $1, which offers unlimited business card scanning, unlimited address book syncs, and unlimited calendar integrations; and an enterprise version, which is priced based on your company’s need and offers features like batch scanning, custom contact fields, and unlimited free manual card transcriptions. Of the apps we tested, ScanBizCards has the best OCR technology.
This app was consistently accurate in its card-reading capabilities; it did occasionally get tripped up on non-traditional layouts and glossy/black cards. Although the free and premium versions of the app do not offer batch mode for processing multiple cards, the OCR is accurate enough that we were still able to breeze through many cards fairly quickly. The free version of ScanBizCards also offers unlimited card scanning, so if you’re looking for a quality business card scanner (and you’re not particularly interested in a synced-up cloud-based database or manual card transcriptions) then the free version of ScanBizCards is an excellent tool. Some of the features you’ll see in free or paid versions of other apps are enterprise-only in ScanBizCards. There is no batch photo mode, nor does the camera automatically snap a photo when a business card is in range.
ScanBizCards has a lot of features that many people may never use, including the ability to export contacts to Salesforce, Excel, and Evernote, and manual transcription services for cards that the scanner can’t read. But so many features makes the app a little difficult to navigate, because so many of the features have non-intuitive jargonized names (e.g.
“WebSync” and “CircleBack”). The app can scan cards in 21 different languages, though, including Hungarian, Lithuanian, Turkish, Serbian, and Vietnamese.
By. 2:30 pm, October 25, 2017. Business cards refuse to go away. Photo: Today, almost everyone carries a smartphone, and that’s where we keep our contacts lists.
And yet we still exchange business cards. They’re easy to use, they don’t require you to mess withAirDrop, or any other convoluted way to share, and — perhaps most important — they’re customary. We’re used to handing over our details on card. So today we’re going to see how to make and print a business card in Pages, for Mac or iOS. The good news is, it’s super easy.
The bad news? Think of the trees. Do we really still need business cards? The answer to this comes from the Mobile World Congress, the yearly trade show in Barcelona where the the newest mobile tech is hawked. There’s always a new startup there trying to replace the business card with some kind of clunky app-based “solution,” but the whole show runs on paper cards. But when I tried to go card-free one year, every time I had to exchange contact details I had to explain myself, all while scrawling my email address onto scraps of paper. Worse, if you don’t have a card, PR folks assume that you’re not legit.
An official-looking card “proves” that you work for whoever you say you work for. And a card is pretty much mandatory to get into press events. How to design a business card in Pages Pages has several business card templates built in. These are better than starting from scratch, because they’ve already taken care of the layout of multiple cards on a page, which is the most annoying part of printing business cards from a word-processor app (fancier publishing apps like InDesign have tools to make this easier). To design a card, we will choose one of these templates, redesign one of the cards to our liking, and then copy and paste that new design across the entire page. There’s no way to automate the last step, but we can make it less painful. One final note before we begin: The screenshots here show Pages on an iPad, but the process works exactly the same on the Mac.
Pick a template Pick one of these fine templates to get you started. Photo: Pages business card templates Open up Pages and tap the little + icon, then scroll down to check out the templates. I picked the Classic Business Cards template because it is the simplest, and therefore easy to customize. Switch on guides Make sure all of these are on. Photo: Cult of Mac Next, we switch on Pages’ smart guides. These are lines which appear whenever you drag an object, in order to make it easier to line things up. To switch on the smart guides, tap the at the top right of the window to access Pages’ settings, and toggle the switches for Center Guides, Spacing Guides, and Edge Guides.
Exit settings by tapping the again. Edit your business card You only need to edit the first card in the template. Photo: Cult of Mac Now we start on the design. First, you should replace the sample text with your own contact details.
Just tap or click into the existing text fields and change the information. Do this by double-tapping on the text to make it editable. Type in your own details for the name, job title, and contact information fields (these fields may vary if you chose a different template). Next, we’ll change the typefaces. I like Helvetica, so I’ll change my card to use that. I’ll also make the name bold so it stands out. To access these text tools, tap the little paintbrush icon in the toolbar, and then tap the Text label at the top of the sidebar.
You’ll be familiar with these tools. Change the fonts This is where you pick your typeface. Photo: Cult of Mac To change the fonts, font sizes, and other attributes, just tap on the text in the main window, and then make the changes in the sidebar. One thing to note here is that these business card templates are. That is, the text is contained in boxes, instead of being allowed to roam free across the page. Boxes can be grouped together, and if you’re using the same Classic template as me, then you’ll notice that the name and job title boxes are already grouped, because when you tap on ones they both get selected. If you want to apply different styles to each of these fields, you can just double tap each one to select it individually.
Or you can sell all fields and apply the same typeface at once. To access the different styles contained in a typeface (bold, italic, and so on), tap the little i next to the name of the typeface — Helvetica Neue in my case. Now is also the time to experiment with layout. Just drag the fields around until you like the look of the layout. You’ll notice that the smart guides will pop up automatically to help get things properly aligned. Getting ready for print The next part is the most boring part, because it involves copying and pasting the card you created into all the other spots on the page. There’s no good way to automate this, so you’ll just have to get on with it.
First, group all the text boxes in your card. This locks the layout and makes it easy to paste as a single object. To group the text fields, select them all. On the iPad, this is done by placing and keeping your finger on one box, while tapping the others.
Remember, we’re only grouping the fields in the first card, the one we already edited. When they are all selected, tap Group in the black popover bubble. Group all the elements of your card together.
Photo: Cult of Mac Now, let’s delete the rest of the cards. Select them all, in the same way you just selected the elements of you card, above. Then tap Delete in the black popover bubble. Next, tap your card and then tap Copy in the black popover bubble, then tap on a blank spot on the page and tap Paste in the black popover bubble.
You can paste several copies, and then align them, or align them as you go. Either way, you can use the smart guides to make sure everything is aligned. The built-in guides help to line things up.
Photo: Cult of Mac Printing your cards If your printer handles card, then you can print at home. Just load up the card stock into the printer (the size is indicated at the bottom of each page of the template — in this case it is Avery 5371). Then hit print, and print the cards.
You may have noticed that the card template we used had two pages. Just ignore the second page. If it will be identical to the first, then why bother, right? Just make sure to print only the first page of your document. If you’re planning to send out the document as a PDF, though, you should delete the second page.
Do this by tapping the view options icon at top right, next to the Documents button. Then chose to Page Thumbnails. Then, in the newly-appeared column, tap the thumbnail for the second page, and tap Delete in the black popover bubble. Printing on the iPAd is easy, if you have an AirPrint printer. Photo: Cult of Mac On the iPad, printing is just as easy.
Tap the icon at top right, then tap Print, and follow along with the AirPrint dialog. If you don’t have a printer, or you want your local printshop to use some fancy cards stock, then you should save the file as a PDF. Just above the Print button in the menu is the Export button. Tap that, then choose how you’re going to send the PDF in the standard share dialog box. You can also choose to save the PDF in the Files app to deal with later. Options There are plenty of other options for your card.
You can add images, and you can really go to town on the text formatting. Just remember that you need to line everything up using the smart guides before printing, so that chopping the cars into card-sized cards is simple.