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] [-o|--output-file] [-n|--dont-scan] [-T|--test]
14 [-A|--all-options] [-h|--help] [-v|--verbose] [-B|--buffer-size
15 [=size]] [-V|--version] [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 or the file specified by the --output-file option. format
66 can be pnm, tiff, png, or jpeg. If --format is not specified, PNM is
67 written by default.
68 The -i or --icc-profile option is used to include an ICC profile into a
70 TIFF file.
71 The -L or --list-devices option requests a (partial) list of devices
73 that are available. The list is not complete since some devices may be
74 available, but are not listed in any of the configuration files (which
75 are typically stored in directory /etc/sane.d). This is particularly
76 the case when accessing scanners through the network. If a device is
77 not listed in a configuration file, the only way to access it is by its
78 full device name. You may need to consult your system administrator to
79 find out the names of such devices.
80 The -f or --formatted-device-list option works similar to
82 --list-devices, but requires a format string. scanimage replaces the
83 placeholders %d %v %m %t %i %n with the device name, vendor name, model
84 name, scanner type, an index number and newline respectively. The com‐
85 mand
86 scanimage -f “ scanner number %i device %d is a %t, model %m,
88 produced by %v ”
89 will produce something like:
91 scanner number 0 device sharp:/dev/sg1 is a flatbed scanner,
93 model JX250 SCSI, produced by SHARP
94 The --batch* options provide the features for scanning documents using
96 document feeders. --batch [format] is used to specify the format of
97 the filename that each page will be written to. Each page is written
98 out to a single file. If format is not specified, the default of
99 out%d.pnm (or out%d.tif for --format tiff, out%d.png for --format png
100 or out%d.jpg for -- format jpeg) will be used. This option is incom‐
101 patible with the --output-path option. format is given as a printf
102 style string with one integer parameter. --batch-start start selects
103 the page number to start naming files with. If this option is not
104 given, the counter will start at 1. --batch-count count specifies the
105 number of pages to attempt to scan. If not given, scanimage will con‐
106 tinue scanning until the scanner returns a state other than OK. Not
107 all scanners with document feeders signal when the ADF is empty, use
108 this command to work around them. With --batch-increment increment you
109 can change the amount that the number in the filename is incremented
110 by. Generally this is used when you are scanning double-sided docu‐
111 ments on a single-sided document feeder. A specific command is pro‐
112 vided to aid this: --batch-double will automatically set the increment
113 to 2. --batch-prompt will ask for pressing RETURN before scanning a
114 page. This can be used for scanning multiple pages without an automatic
115 document feeder.
116 The --accept-md5-only option only accepts user authorization requests
118 that support MD5 security. The SANE network daemon (saned) is capable
119 of doing such requests. See saned(8).
120 The -p or --progress option requests that scanimage prints a progress
122 counter. It shows how much image data of the current image has already
123 been received by scanimage (in percent).
124 The -o or --output-file option requests that scanimage saves the scan‐
126 ning output to the given path. This option is incompatible with the
127 --batch option. The program will try to guess --format from the file
128 name. If that is not possible, it will print an error message and
129 exit.
130 The -n or --dont-scan option requests that scanimage only sets the
132 options provided by the user but doesn't actually perform a scan. This
133 option can be used to e.g. turn off the scanner's lamp (if supported by
134 the backend).
135 The -T or --test option requests that scanimage performs a few simple
137 sanity tests to make sure the backend works as defined by the SANE API
138 (in particular the sane_read function is exercised by this test).
139 The -A or --all-options option requests that scanimage lists all avail‐
141 able options exposed the backend, including button options. The infor‐
142 mation is printed on standard output and no scan will be done.
143 The -h or --help options request help information. The information is
145 printed on standard output and in this case, no attempt will be made to
146 acquire an image.
147 The -v or --verbose options increase the verbosity of the operation of
149 scanimage. The option may be specified repeatedly, each time increas‐
150 ing the verbosity level.
151 The -B option without argument changes the input buffer size from the
153 default 32KB to 1MB. For finer grained control, use --buffer-size=
154 followed by the number of KB.
155 The -V or --version option requests that scanimage prints the program
157 and package name, the version number of the SANE distribution that it
158 came with and the version of the backend that it loads. Usually that's
159 the dll backend. If more information about the version numbers of the
160 backends are necessary, the DEBUG variable for the dll backend can be
161 used. Example: SANE_DEBUG_DLL=3 scanimage -L.
162 As you might imagine, much of the power of scanimage comes from the
164 fact that it can control any SANE backend. Thus, the exact set of com‐
165 mand-line options depends on the capabilities of the selected device.
166 To see the options for a device named dev, invoke scanimage via a com‐
167 mand-line of the form:
168 scanimage --help --device-name dev
170 The documentation for the device-specific options printed by --help is
172 best explained with a few examples:
173 -l 0..218mm [0]
175 Top-left x position of scan area.
176 The description above shows that option -l expects an option
178 value in the range from 0 to 218 mm. The value in square brack‐
179 ets indicates that the current option value is 0 mm. Most back‐
180 ends provide similar geometry options for top-left y position
181 (-t), width (-x) and height of scan-area (-y).
182 --brightness -100..100% [0]
185 Controls the brightness of the acquired image.
186 The description above shows that option --brightness expects an
188 option value in the range from -100 to 100 percent. The value
189 in square brackets indicates that the current option value is 0
190 percent.
191 --default-enhancements
193 Set default values for enhancement controls.
194 The description above shows that option --default-enhancements
196 has no option value. It should be thought of as having an imme‐
197 diate effect at the point of the command-line at which it
198 appears. For example, since this option resets the --brightness
199 option, the option-pair --brightness 50 --default-enhancements
200 would effectively be a no-op.
201 --mode Lineart|Gray|Color [Gray]
203 Selects the scan mode (e.g., lineart or color).
204 The description above shows that option --mode accepts an argu‐
206 ment that must be one of the strings Lineart, Gray, or Color.
207 The value in the square bracket indicates that the option is
208 currently set to Gray. For convenience, it is legal to abbrevi‐
209 ate the string values as long as they remain unique. Also, the
210 case of the spelling doesn't matter. For example, option set‐
211 ting --mode col is identical to --mode Color.
212 --custom-gamma[=(yes|no)] [inactive]
214 Determines whether a builtin or a custom gamma-table
215 should be used.
216 The description above shows that option --custom-gamma expects
218 either no option value, a "yes" string, or a "no" string. Spec‐
219 ifying the option with no value is equivalent to specifying
220 "yes". The value in square-brackets indicates that the option
221 is not currently active. That is, attempting to set the option
222 would result in an error message. The set of available options
223 typically depends on the settings of other options. For exam‐
224 ple, the --custom-gamma table might be active only when a
225 grayscale or color scan-mode has been requested.
226 Note that the --help option is processed only after all other
228 options have been processed. This makes it possible to see the
229 option settings for a particular mode by specifying the appro‐
230 priate mode-options along with the --help option. For example,
231 the command-line:
232 scanimage --help --mode color
234 would print the option settings that are in effect when the
236 color-mode is selected.
237 --gamma-table 0..255,...
239 Gamma-correction table. In color mode this option
240 equally affects the red, green, and blue channels
241 simultaneously (i.e., it is an intensity gamma table).
242 The description above shows that option --gamma-table expects
244 zero or more values in the range 0 to 255. For example, a legal
245 value for this option would be "3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12". Since
246 it's cumbersome to specify long vectors in this form, the same
247 can be expressed by the abbreviated form "[0]3-[9]12". What
248 this means is that the first vector element is set to 3, the
249 9-th element is set to 12 and the values in between are interpo‐
250 lated linearly. Of course, it is possible to specify multiple
251 such linear segments. For example, "[0]3-[2]3-[6]7,[7]10-[9]6"
252 is equivalent to "3,3,3,4,5,6,7,10,8,6". The program
253 gamma4scanimage can be used to generate such gamma tables (see
254 gamma4scanimage(1) for details).
255 --filename <string> [/tmp/input.ppm]
257 The filename of the image to be loaded.
258 The description above is an example of an option that takes an
260 arbitrary string value (which happens to be a filename). Again,
261 the value in brackets show that the option is current set to the
262 filename /tmp/input.ppm.
263
266 SANE_DEFAULT_DEVICE
267 The default device-name.
268
270 /etc/sane.d
271 This directory holds various configuration files. For details,
272 please refer to the manual pages listed below.
273 ~/.sane/pass
275 This file contains lines of the form
276 user:password:resource
278 scanimage uses this information to answer user authorization
280 requests automatically. The file must have 0600 permissions or
281 stricter. You should use this file in conjunction with the
282 --accept-md5-only option to avoid server-side attacks. The
283 resource may contain any character but is limited to 127 charac‐
284 ters.
285
287 sane(7), gamma4scanimage(1), xscanimage(1), xcam(1), xsane(1),
288 scanadf(1), sane-dll(5), sane-net(5), sane-"backendname"[22m(5)
289
291 David Mosberger, Andreas Beck, Gordon Matzigkeit, Caskey Dickson, and
292 many others. For questions and comments contact the sane-devel mail‐
293 inglist (see http://www.sane-project.org/mailing-lists.html).
294
297 For vector options, the help output currently has no indication as to
298 how many elements a vector-value should have.
299 10 Jul 2008 scanimage(1)