1scanimage(1) SANE Scanner Access Now Easy scanimage(1)
2
6 scanimage - scan an image
7
9 scanimage [-d|--device-name dev] [--format format] [-i|--icc-profile
10 profile] [-L|--list-devices] [-f|--formatted-device-list format]
11 [-b|--batch [=format]] [--batch-start start] [--batch-count count]
12 [--batch-increment increment] [--batch-double] [--accept-md5-only]
13 [-p|--progress] [-n|--dont-scan] [-T|--test] [-A|--all-options]
14 [-h|--help] [-v|--verbose] [-B|--buffer-size [=size]] [-V|--version]
15 [device-specific-options]
16
18 scanimage is a command-line interface to control image acquisition
19 devices such as flatbed scanners or cameras. The device is controlled
20 via command-line options. After command-line processing, scanimage
21 normally proceeds to acquire an image. The image data is written to
22 standard output in one of the PNM (portable aNyMaP) formats (PBM for
23 black-and-white images, PGM for grayscale images, and PPM for color
24 images), TIFF format (black-and-white, grayscale or color), PNG format,
25 or JPEG format. scanimage accesses image acquisition devices through
26 the SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) interface and can thus support any
27 device for which there exists a SANE backend (try apropos sane- to get
28 a list of available backends).
29
32 To get a list of devices:
33 scanimage -L
35 To scan with default settings to the file image.pnm:
37 scanimage >image.pnm
39 To scan 100x100 mm to the file image.tiff (-x and -y may not be avail‐
41 able with all devices):
42 scanimage -x 100 -y 100 --format=tiff >image.tiff
44 To print all available options:
46 scanimage -h
48
51 Parameters are separated by a blank from single-character options (e.g.
52 -d epson) and by a "=" from multi-character options (e.g.
53 --device-name=epson).
54 The -d or --device-name options must be followed by a SANE device-name
57 like `epson:/dev/sg0' or `hp:/dev/usbscanner0'. A (partial) list of
58 available devices can be obtained with the --list-devices option (see
59 below). If no device-name is specified explicitly, scanimage reads a
60 device-name from the environment variable SANE_DEFAULT_DEVICE. If this
61 variable is not set, scanimage will attempt to open the first available
62 device.
63 The --format format option selects how image data is written to stan‐
65 dard output. format can be pnm, tiff, png, or jpeg. If --format is
66 not used, PNM is written.
67 The -i or --icc-profile option is used to include an ICC profile into a
69 TIFF file.
70 The -L or --list-devices option requests a (partial) list of devices
72 that are available. The list is not complete since some devices may be
73 available, but are not listed in any of the configuration files (which
74 are typically stored in directory /etc/sane.d). This is particularly
75 the case when accessing scanners through the network. If a device is
76 not listed in a configuration file, the only way to access it is by its
77 full device name. You may need to consult your system administrator to
78 find out the names of such devices.
79 The -f or --formatted-device-list option works similar to
81 --list-devices, but requires a format string. scanimage replaces the
82 placeholders %d %v %m %t %i %n with the device name, vendor name, model
83 name, scanner type, an index number and newline respectively. The com‐
84 mand
85 scanimage -f “ scanner number %i device %d is a %t, model %m,
87 produced by %v ”
88 will produce something like:
90 scanner number 0 device sharp:/dev/sg1 is a flatbed scanner,
92 model JX250 SCSI, produced by SHARP
93 The --batch* options provide the features for scanning documents using
95 document feeders. --batch [format] is used to specify the format of
96 the filename that each page will be written to. Each page is written
97 out to a single file. If format is not specified, the default of
98 out%d.pnm (or out%d.tif for --format tiff, out%d.png for --format png
99 or out%d.jpg for -- format jpeg) will be used. format is given as a
100 printf style string with one integer parameter. --batch-start start
101 selects the page number to start naming files with. If this option is
102 not given, the counter will start at 1. --batch-count count specifies
103 the number of pages to attempt to scan. If not given, scanimage will
104 continue scanning until the scanner returns a state other than OK. Not
105 all scanners with document feeders signal when the ADF is empty, use
106 this command to work around them. With --batch-increment increment you
107 can change the amount that the number in the filename is incremented
108 by. Generally this is used when you are scanning double-sided docu‐
109 ments on a single-sided document feeder. A specific command is pro‐
110 vided to aid this: --batch-double will automatically set the increment
111 to 2. --batch-prompt will ask for pressing RETURN before scanning a
112 page. This can be used for scanning multiple pages without an automatic
113 document feeder.
114 The --accept-md5-only option only accepts user authorization requests
116 that support MD5 security. The SANE network daemon (saned) is capable
117 of doing such requests. See saned(8).
118 The -p or --progress option requests that scanimage prints a progress
120 counter. It shows how much image data of the current image has already
121 been received by scanimage (in percent).
122 The -n or --dont-scan option requests that scanimage only sets the
124 options provided by the user but doesn't actually perform a scan. This
125 option can be used to e.g. turn off the scanner's lamp (if supported by
126 the backend).
127 The -T or --test option requests that scanimage performs a few simple
129 sanity tests to make sure the backend works as defined by the SANE API
130 (in particular the sane_read function is exercised by this test).
131 The -A or --all-options option requests that scanimage lists all avail‐
133 able options exposed the backend, including button options. The infor‐
134 mation is printed on standard output and no scan will be done.
135 The -h or --help options request help information. The information is
137 printed on standard output and in this case, no attempt will be made to
138 acquire an image.
139 The -v or --verbose options increase the verbosity of the operation of
141 scanimage. The option may be specified repeatedly, each time increas‐
142 ing the verbosity level.
143 The -B option without argument changes the input buffer size from the
145 default 32KB to 1MB. For finer grained control, use --buffer-size=
146 followed by the number of KB.
147 The -V or --version option requests that scanimage prints the program
149 and package name, the version number of the SANE distribution that it
150 came with and the version of the backend that it loads. Usually that's
151 the dll backend. If more information about the version numbers of the
152 backends are necessary, the DEBUG variable for the dll backend can be
153 used. Example: SANE_DEBUG_DLL=3 scanimage -L.
154 As you might imagine, much of the power of scanimage comes from the
156 fact that it can control any SANE backend. Thus, the exact set of com‐
157 mand-line options depends on the capabilities of the selected device.
158 To see the options for a device named dev, invoke scanimage via a com‐
159 mand-line of the form:
160 scanimage --help --device-name dev
162 The documentation for the device-specific options printed by --help is
164 best explained with a few examples:
165 -l 0..218mm [0]
167 Top-left x position of scan area.
168 The description above shows that option -l expects an option
170 value in the range from 0 to 218 mm. The value in square brack‐
171 ets indicates that the current option value is 0 mm. Most back‐
172 ends provide similar geometry options for top-left y position
173 (-t), width (-x) and height of scan-area (-y).
174 --brightness -100..100% [0]
177 Controls the brightness of the acquired image.
178 The description above shows that option --brightness expects an
180 option value in the range from -100 to 100 percent. The value
181 in square brackets indicates that the current option value is 0
182 percent.
183 --default-enhancements
185 Set default values for enhancement controls.
186 The description above shows that option --default-enhancements
188 has no option value. It should be thought of as having an imme‐
189 diate effect at the point of the command-line at which it
190 appears. For example, since this option resets the --brightness
191 option, the option-pair --brightness 50 --default-enhancements
192 would effectively be a no-op.
193 --mode Lineart|Gray|Color [Gray]
195 Selects the scan mode (e.g., lineart or color).
196 The description above shows that option --mode accepts an argu‐
198 ment that must be one of the strings Lineart, Gray, or Color.
199 The value in the square bracket indicates that the option is
200 currently set to Gray. For convenience, it is legal to abbrevi‐
201 ate the string values as long as they remain unique. Also, the
202 case of the spelling doesn't matter. For example, option set‐
203 ting --mode col is identical to --mode Color.
204 --custom-gamma[=(yes|no)] [inactive]
206 Determines whether a builtin or a custom gamma-table
207 should be used.
208 The description above shows that option --custom-gamma expects
210 either no option value, a "yes" string, or a "no" string. Spec‐
211 ifying the option with no value is equivalent to specifying
212 "yes". The value in square-brackets indicates that the option
213 is not currently active. That is, attempting to set the option
214 would result in an error message. The set of available options
215 typically depends on the settings of other options. For exam‐
216 ple, the --custom-gamma table might be active only when a
217 grayscale or color scan-mode has been requested.
218 Note that the --help option is processed only after all other
220 options have been processed. This makes it possible to see the
221 option settings for a particular mode by specifying the appro‐
222 priate mode-options along with the --help option. For example,
223 the command-line:
224 scanimage --help --mode color
226 would print the option settings that are in effect when the
228 color-mode is selected.
229 --gamma-table 0..255,...
231 Gamma-correction table. In color mode this option
232 equally affects the red, green, and blue channels
233 simultaneously (i.e., it is an intensity gamma table).
234 The description above shows that option --gamma-table expects
236 zero or more values in the range 0 to 255. For example, a legal
237 value for this option would be "3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12". Since
238 it's cumbersome to specify long vectors in this form, the same
239 can be expressed by the abbreviated form "[0]3-[9]12". What
240 this means is that the first vector element is set to 3, the
241 9-th element is set to 12 and the values in between are interpo‐
242 lated linearly. Of course, it is possible to specify multiple
243 such linear segments. For example, "[0]3-[2]3-[6]7,[7]10-[9]6"
244 is equivalent to "3,3,3,4,5,6,7,10,8,6". The program
245 gamma4scanimage can be used to generate such gamma tables (see
246 gamma4scanimage(1) for details).
247 --filename <string> [/tmp/input.ppm]
249 The filename of the image to be loaded.
250 The description above is an example of an option that takes an
252 arbitrary string value (which happens to be a filename). Again,
253 the value in brackets show that the option is current set to the
254 filename /tmp/input.ppm.
255
258 SANE_DEFAULT_DEVICE
259 The default device-name.
260
262 /etc/sane.d
263 This directory holds various configuration files. For details,
264 please refer to the manual pages listed below.
265 ~/.sane/pass
267 This file contains lines of the form
268 user:password:resource
270 scanimage uses this information to answer user authorization
272 requests automatically. The file must have 0600 permissions or
273 stricter. You should use this file in conjunction with the
274 --accept-md5-only option to avoid server-side attacks. The
275 resource may contain any character but is limited to 127 charac‐
276 ters.
277
279 sane(7), gamma4scanimage(1), xscanimage(1), xcam(1), xsane(1),
280 scanadf(1), sane-dll(5), sane-net(5), sane-"backendname"[22m(5)
281
283 David Mosberger, Andreas Beck, Gordon Matzigkeit, Caskey Dickson, and
284 many others. For questions and comments contact the sane-devel mail‐
285 inglist (see http://www.sane-project.org/mailing-lists.html).
286
289 For vector options, the help output currently has no indication as to
290 how many elements a vector-value should have.
291 10 Jul 2008 scanimage(1)