In the business world, we deal with all kinds of communication, via email, phone and social media. Even to this day, despite the leaps and bounds made in online networking, nothing beats a firm handshake and a quality physical business card that can be given to a client, friend or potential business partner. Of course, we probably get our fill of these cards through the normal course of our business and we might want to manage them, or even be creative. The following five apps for Windows deal in the realm of business cards and I believe are worth taking a look at.

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Five Apps

1. Business Card Reader 2.0

ABBYY is a company responsible for creating some excellent software in the realm of optical character recognition. When you need to scan a card and log the info to your hard drive for safe keeping, this utility will serve you handsomely. The interface is clean and not cluttered in any way, allowing you to perform quick scans without encumbrance. The app costs $29.99, but you can try it for free.

2. CardWorks Business Card Software

NCH, a purveyor of fine utilities in a range of areas, has another hit in their business card creation tool. You can choose from a variety of premade templates for creating business cards that are unique and professional. You can also export your end product out as PDF files with the correct dimensions and cut out diagrams, making this great for cardstock paper. The app is free.

3. Business card Recognition Software

Unlike the stellar and well thought out Business Card Reader by ABBYY, this tool does come off as a throwback from the 90s in terms of user interface design. The OCR can also be hit or miss, depending on how the card is formatted. Nevertheless, this product is freeware, which cancels out some of those issues in my book. It does also offer a decent database search function for cards that are already saved.

4. Business Card Designer Plus

This product is seen as the “Cadillac” of business card design tools, with more features available for fine-tuning card designs as well as a rather robust database system for searching for cards. There is also a plethora of pre-existing designs to choose from, should you need to gather some inspiration for your next design. The app costs $29.95, but a 15-day free trial is available for download.

5. Business Card Manager

For a comprehensive way of managing business cards, Business Card Manager brings a lot to the table, such as a reminders system for notifying you of important dates, such as birthdays and meeting dates. There appears to be broken English in parts of the app, as the author is not a native English speaker, but the software works quite well and is worth checking out. The app costs $19.95, but a 20-day free trial is available for download.

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