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 (compression level 75). scanimage accesses image acqui‐
26 sition devices through the SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) interface and
27 can thus support any device for which there exists a SANE backend (try
28 apropos sane- to get 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 incompat‐
101 ible with the --output-path option. format is given as a printf style
102 string with one integer parameter. --batch-start start selects the
103 page number to start naming files with. If this option is not given,
104 the counter will start at 1. --batch-count count specifies the number
105 of pages to attempt to scan. If not given, scanimage will continue
106 scanning until the scanner returns a state other than OK. Not all
107 scanners with document feeders signal when the ADF is empty, use this
108 command to work around them. With --batch-increment increment you can
109 change the amount that the number in the filename is incremented by.
110 Generally this is used when you are scanning double-sided documents on
111 a single-sided document feeder. A specific command is provided to aid
112 this: --batch-double will automatically set the increment to 2.
113 --batch-prompt will ask for pressing RETURN before scanning a page.
114 This can be used for scanning multiple pages without an automatic docu‐
115 ment 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 exit.
129 The -n or --dont-scan option requests that scanimage only sets the
131 options provided by the user but doesn't actually perform a scan. This
132 option can be used to e.g. turn off the scanner's lamp (if supported by
133 the backend).
134 The -T or --test option requests that scanimage performs a few simple
136 sanity tests to make sure the backend works as defined by the SANE API
137 (in particular the sane_read() function is exercised by this test).
138 The -A or --all-options option requests that scanimage lists all avail‐
140 able options exposed the backend, including button options. The infor‐
141 mation is printed on standard output and no scan will be done.
142 The -h or --help options request help information. The information is
144 printed on standard output and in this case, no attempt will be made to
145 acquire an image.
146 The -v or --verbose options increase the verbosity of the operation of
148 scanimage. The option may be specified repeatedly, each time increas‐
149 ing the verbosity level.
150 The -B option without argument changes the input buffer size from the
152 default 32KB to 1MB. For finer grained control, use --buffer-size=
153 followed by the number of KB.
154 The -V or --version option requests that scanimage prints the program
156 and package name, the version number of the SANE distribution that it
157 came with and the version of the backend that it loads. Usually that's
158 the dll backend. If more information about the version numbers of the
159 backends are necessary, the DEBUG variable for the dll backend can be
160 used. Example: SANE_DEBUG_DLL=3 scanimage -L .
161 As you might imagine, much of the power of scanimage comes from the
163 fact that it can control any SANE backend. Thus, the exact set of com‐
164 mand-line options depends on the capabilities of the selected device.
165 To see the options for a device named dev, invoke scanimage via a com‐
166 mand-line of the form:
167 scanimage --help --device-name dev
169 The documentation for the device-specific options printed by --help is
171 best explained with a few examples:
172 -l 0..218mm [0]
174 Top-left x position of scan area.
175 The description above shows that option -l expects an option
177 value in the range from 0 to 218 mm. The value in square brack‐
178 ets indicates that the current option value is 0 mm. Most back‐
179 ends provide similar geometry options for top-left y position
180 (-t), width (-x) and height of scan-area (-y).
181 --brightness -100..100% [0]
184 Controls the brightness of the acquired image.
185 The description above shows that option --brightness expects an
187 option value in the range from -100 to 100 percent. The value
188 in square brackets indicates that the current option value is 0
189 percent.
190 --default-enhancements
192 Set default values for enhancement controls.
193 The description above shows that option --default-enhancements
195 has no option value. It should be thought of as having an imme‐
196 diate effect at the point of the command-line at which it
197 appears. For example, since this option resets the --brightness
198 option, the option-pair --brightness 50 --default-enhancements
199 would effectively be a no-op.
200 --mode Lineart|Gray|Color [Gray]
202 Selects the scan mode (e.g., lineart or color).
203 The description above shows that option --mode accepts an argu‐
205 ment that must be one of the strings Lineart, Gray, or Color.
206 The value in the square bracket indicates that the option is
207 currently set to Gray. For convenience, it is legal to abbrevi‐
208 ate the string values as long as they remain unique. Also, the
209 case of the spelling doesn't matter. For example, option set‐
210 ting --mode col is identical to --mode Color.
211 --custom-gamma[=(yes|no)] [inactive]
213 Determines whether a builtin or a custom gamma-table should be
214 used.
215 The description above shows that option --custom-gamma expects
217 either no option value, a "yes" string, or a "no" string. Spec‐
218 ifying the option with no value is equivalent to specifying
219 "yes". The value in square-brackets indicates that the option
220 is not currently active. That is, attempting to set the option
221 would result in an error message. The set of available options
222 typically depends on the settings of other options. For exam‐
223 ple, the --custom-gamma table might be active only when a
224 grayscale or color scan-mode has been requested.
225 Note that the --help option is processed only after all other
227 options have been processed. This makes it possible to see the
228 option settings for a particular mode by specifying the appro‐
229 priate mode-options along with the --help option. For example,
230 the command-line:
231 scanimage --help --mode color
233 would print the option settings that are in effect when the
235 color-mode is selected.
236 --gamma-table 0..255,...
238 Gamma-correction table. In color mode this option
239 equally affects the red, green, and blue channels
240 simultaneously (i.e., it is an intensity gamma table).
241 The description above shows that option --gamma-table expects
243 zero or more values in the range 0 to 255. For example, a legal
244 value for this option would be "3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12". Since
245 it's cumbersome to specify long vectors in this form, the same
246 can be expressed by the abbreviated form "[0]3-[9]12". What
247 this means is that the first vector element is set to 3, the
248 9-th element is set to 12 and the values in between are interpo‐
249 lated linearly. Of course, it is possible to specify multiple
250 such linear segments. For example, "[0]3-[2]3-[6]7,[7]10-[9]6"
251 is equivalent to "3,3,3,4,5,6,7,10,8,6". The program
252 gamma4scanimage can be used to generate such gamma tables (see
253 gamma4scanimage(1) for details).
254 --filename <string> [/tmp/input.ppm]
256 The filename of the image to be loaded.
257 The description above is an example of an option that takes an
259 arbitrary string value (which happens to be a filename). Again,
260 the value in brackets show that the option is current set to the
261 filename /tmp/input.ppm.
262
265 SANE_DEFAULT_DEVICE
266 The default device-name.
267
269 /etc/sane.d
270 This directory holds various configuration files. For details,
271 please refer to the manual pages listed below.
272 ~/.sane/pass
274 This file contains lines of the form
275 user:password:resource
277 scanimage uses this information to answer user authorization
279 requests automatically. The file must have 0600 permissions or
280 stricter. You should use this file in conjunction with the
281 --accept-md5-only option to avoid server-side attacks. The
282 resource may contain any character but is limited to 127 charac‐
283 ters.
284
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
292 David Mosberger, Andreas Beck, Gordon Matzigkeit, Caskey Dickson, and
293 many others. For questions and comments contact the sane-devel mail‐
294 inglist (see http://www.sane-project.org/mailing-lists.html).
295
298 For vector options, the help output currently has no indication as to
299 how many elements a vector-value should have.
300 10 Jul 2008 scanimage(1)