The control of tablet-to-tablet variation that occurs during batch coating operations is important in the pharmaceutical industry. This is particularly true when the coating substance contains an active ingredient (drug). The current work focused on evaluating the effect of tablet deflectors in the spray zone on the variation of coating material received by individual tablets as they pass through the spray. Digital video imaging was used to show how these deflectors changed the solids' velocity and voidage profiles near the spray nozzle. A series of coating experiments was conducted to establish how such deflectors affected the coating variation per tablet per pass and the overall variation in coating received per tablet in a batch coating process. For the optimum deflector considered in this work, the relative standard deviation of coating mass was reduced from 11.3% without any deflector to 6.7%.