Windows 11, Scanning, and PDFs

I recently upgraded my wife’s PC to an HP Omnistudio X, since her previous computer had a habit of simply locking up a few times a day. I moved the data across, and deleted various forms of crapware so things are relatively good. Then she wanted to scan a document…no problem, right? Yeah, no…

HP Smart will not perform a scan without creating an account. That makes it a non-starter. HP Smart is borderline spyware to begin with.

HP Scan and Capture, which did pretty much what the name implies, without requiring an account, is no longer available despite being in our library on the Microsoft store.

I installed the Microsoft Scan app, which works is OK, but it is image based only so PDFs are not searchable. This led to my next disappointment…

When I previewed the file in Edge, I noticed “Edit with Adobe” in the menu. Searching on this topic indicates that the PDF engine in Edge has been removed and edits can be done with Adobe tools…with a subscription. All options under this menu are an upsell. I could still disable this feature in flags, but apparently, that option is going away in the near future, though perhaps there will be a toggle when the feature rolls out fully sometime this year.

Does anyone have recommendations for a good, non-subscription based scanning app that can produce searchable PDF documents? If it can also be used to edit and markup PDFs that would be great, but if not, suggestions for an app that can do that would also be appreciated. I would prefer paid, non-subscription apps from developers who want to treat customers like adults.

The machines I have installed Linux on do not have this issue. They included scanning applications that just worked, and produced searchable documents. But this is for the wife, so Linux is not an option.