Ubuntu Manpage: scanimage

NAME

       scanimage - scan an image

SYNOPSIS

       scanimage    [-d|--device-name   dev]   [--format   format]   [-i|--icc-profile   profile]
       [-L|--list-devices]    [-f|--formatted-device-list    format]    [-b|--batch     [format]]
       [--batch-start start] [--batch-count count] [--batch-increment increment] [--batch-double]
       [--accept-md5-only] [-p|--progress] [-o|--output-file path]  [-n|--dont-scan]  [-T|--test]
       [-A|--all-options]  [-h|--help]  [-v|--verbose]  [-B|--buffer-size [=size]] [-V|--version]
       [device-specific-options]

DESCRIPTION

       scanimage is a command-line interface to control image acquisition devices such as flatbed
       scanners  or  cameras.  The device is controlled via command-line options.  After command-
       line processing, scanimage normally proceeds to acquire  an  image.   The  image  data  is
       written to standard output in one of the PNM (portable aNyMaP) formats (PBM for black-and-
       white images, PGM for grayscale images, and PPM for color images), TIFF format (black-and-
       white,  grayscale or color), PNG format, or JPEG format (compression level 75).  scanimage
       accesses image acquisition devices through the SANE (Scanner Access  Now  Easy)  interface
       and  can  thus support any device for which there exists a SANE backend (try apropos sane-
       to get a list of available backends).

EXAMPLES

       To get a list of devices:

         scanimage -L

       To scan with default settings to the file image.pnm:

         scanimage >image.pnm

       To scan 100x100 mm to the file image.tiff (-x  and  -y  may  not  be  available  with  all
       devices):

         scanimage -x 100 -y 100 --format=tiff >image.tiff

       To print all available options:

         scanimage -h

OPTIONS

There are two sets of options available when running scanimage.

The options that are provided by scanimage itself are listed below. In addition, each
backend offers its own set of options and these can also be specified. Note that the
options available from the backend may vary depending on the scanning device that is
selected.

Often options that are similar in function may be implemented differently across backends.
An example of this difference is --mode Gray and --mode Grayscale. This may be due to
differing backend author preferences. At other times, options are defined by the scanning
device itself and therefore out of the control of the backend code.

Parameters are separated by a blank from single-character options (e.g. -d epson) and by
a "=" from multi-character options (e.g. --device-name=epson).

-d dev, --device-name=dev
specifies the device to access and must be followed by a SANE device-name like
`epson:/dev/sg0' or `hp:/dev/usbscanner0'. A (partial) list of available devices
can be obtained with the --list-devices option (see below). If no device-name is
specified explicitly, scanimage reads a device-name from the environment variable
SANE_DEFAULT_DEVICE. If this variable is not set, scanimage will attempt to open
the first available device.

--format=format
selects how image data is written to standard output or the file specified by the
--output-file option. format can be pnm, tiff, png, or jpeg. If --format is not
specified, PNM is written by default.

-i profile, --icc-profile=profile
is used to include an ICC profile into a TIFF file.

-L, --list-devices
requests a (partial) list of devices that are available. The list may not be
complete since some devices may be available, but are not listed in any of the
configuration files (which are typically stored in directory /etc/sane.d). This is
particularly the case when accessing scanners through the network. If a device is
not listed in a configuration file, the only way to access it is by its full device
name. You may need to consult your system administrator to find out the names of
such devices.

-f format, --formatted-device-list=format
works similar to --list-devices, but requires a format string. scanimage replaces
the placeholders %d %v %m %t %i %n with the device name, vendor name, model name,
scanner type, an index number and newline respectively. The command

scanimage -f “ scanner number %i device %d is a %t, model %m, produced by %v ”

will produce something like:

scanner number 0 device sharp:/dev/sg1 is a flatbed scanner, model JX250
SCSI, produced by SHARP

The --batch* options provide features for scanning documents using document feeders.

-b [format], --batch=[format]
is used to specify the format of the filename that each page will be written
to. Each page is written out to a single file. If format is not specified,
the default of out%d.pnm (or out%d.tif for --format tiff, out%d.png for
--format png or out%d.jpg for --format jpeg) will be used. This option is
incompatible with the --output-path option. format is given as a printf
style string with one integer parameter.

--batch-start=start
selects the page number to start naming files with. If this option is not
given, the counter will start at 1.

--batch-count=count
specifies the number of pages to attempt to scan. If not given, scanimage
will continue scanning until the scanner returns a state other than OK. Not
all scanners with document feeders signal when the ADF is empty. Use this
option to work around them.

--batch-increment=increment
sets the amount that the number in the filename is incremented by.
Generally this is used when you are scanning double-sided documents on a
single-sided document feeder. --batch-double is a specific command provided
to aid this.

--batch-double
will automatically set the increment to 2. Equivalent to
--batch-increment=2

--batch-prompt
will ask for pressing RETURN before scanning a page. This can be used for
scanning multiple pages without an automatic document feeder.

--accept-md5-only
only accepts user authorization requests that support MD5 security. The SANE
network daemon saned(8) is capable of doing such requests.

-p, --progress
requests that scanimage prints a progress counter. It shows how much image data of
the current image has already been received (in percent).

-o path, --output-file=path
requests that scanimage saves the scanning output to the given path. This option
is incompatible with the --batch option. The program will try to guess --format
from the file name. If that is not possible, it will print an error message and
exit.

-n, --dont-scan
requests that scanimage only sets the options provided by the user but doesn't
actually perform a scan. This option can be used to e.g. turn off the scanner's
lamp (if supported by the backend).

-T, --test
requests that scanimage performs a few simple sanity tests to make sure the backend
works as defined by the SANE API. In particular the sane_read() function is
exercised by this test.

-A, --all-options
requests that scanimage lists all available options exposed by the backend,
including button options. The information is printed on standard output and no
scan will be performed.

-h, --help
requests help information. The information is printed on standard output and no
scan will be performed.

-v, --verbose
increases the verbosity of the output of scanimage. The option may be specified
repeatedly, each time increasing the verbosity level.

-B [size], --buffer-size=[size]
changes input buffer size from the default of 32KB to size KB. If size is not
specified then the buffer is set to 1 MB.

-V, --version
requests that scanimage prints the program and package name, the version number of
the SANE distribution that it came with and the version of the backend that it
loads. If more information about the version numbers of the backends are necessary,
the DEBUG variable for the dll layer can be used. Example: SANE_DEBUG_DLL=3
scanimage -L .

As you might imagine, much of the power of scanimage comes from the fact that it can
control any SANE backend. Thus, the exact set of command-line options depends on the
capabilities of the selected device. To see the options for a device named dev, invoke
scanimage via a command-line of the form:

scanimage --help --device-name dev

The documentation for the device-specific options printed by --help is best explained with
a few examples:

-l 0..218mm [0]
Top-left x position of scan area.

The description above shows that option -l expects an option value in the range
from 0 to 218 mm. The value in square brackets indicates that the current option
value is 0 mm. Most backends provide similar geometry options for top-left y
position (-t), width (-x) and height of scan-area (-y).

--brightness -100..100% [0]
Controls the brightness of the acquired image.

The description above shows that option --brightness expects an option value in the
range from -100 to 100 percent. The value in square brackets indicates that the
current option value is 0 percent.

--default-enhancements
Set default values for enhancement controls.

The description above shows that option --default-enhancements has no option value.
It should be thought of as having an immediate effect at the point of the command-
line at which it appears. For example, since this option resets the --brightness
option, the option-pair --brightness 50 --default-enhancements would effectively be
a no-op.

--mode Lineart|Gray|Color [Gray]
Selects the scan mode (e.g., lineart or color).

The description above shows that option --mode accepts an argument that must be one
of the strings Lineart, Gray, or Color. The value in the square bracket indicates
that the option is currently set to Gray. For convenience, it is legal to
abbreviate the string values as long as they remain unique. Also, the case of the
spelling doesn't matter. For example, option setting --mode col is identical to
--mode Color.

--custom-gamma[=(yes|no)] [inactive]
Determines whether a builtin or a custom gamma-table should be used.

The description above shows that option --custom-gamma expects either no option
value, a "yes" string, or a "no" string. Specifying the option with no value is
equivalent to specifying "yes". The value in square-brackets indicates that the
option is not currently active. That is, attempting to set the option would result
in an error message. The set of available options typically depends on the
settings of other options. For example, the --custom-gamma table might be active
only when a grayscale or color scan-mode has been requested.

Note that the --help option is processed only after all other options have been
processed. This makes it possible to see the option settings for a particular mode
by specifying the appropriate mode-options along with the --help option. For
example, the command-line:

scanimage --help --mode color

would print the option settings that are in effect when the color-mode is selected.

--gamma-table 0..255,...
Gamma-correction table. In color mode this option equally affects the red, green,
and blue channels simultaneously (i.e., it is an intensity gamma table).

The description above shows that option --gamma-table expects zero or more values
in the range 0 to 255. For example, a legal value for this option would be
"3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12". Since it's cumbersome to specify long vectors in this
form, the same can be expressed by the abbreviated form "[0]3-[9]12". What this
means is that the first vector element is set to 3, the 9-th element is set to 12
and the values in between are interpolated linearly. Of course, it is possible to
specify multiple such linear segments. For example, "[0]3-[2]3-[6]7,[7]10-[9]6" is
equivalent to "3,3,3,4,5,6,7,10,8,6". The program gamma4scanimage can be used to
generate such gamma tables (see gamma4scanimage(1) for details).

--filename <string> [/tmp/input.ppm]
The filename of the image to be loaded.

The description above is an example of an option that takes an arbitrary string
value (which happens to be a filename). Again, the value in brackets show that the
option is current set to the filename /tmp/input.ppm.

ENVIRONMENT

       SANE_DEFAULT_DEVICE
              The default device-name.

FILES

       /etc/sane.d
              This directory holds various configuration files.  For details, please refer to the
              manual pages listed below.

       ~/.sane/pass
              This file contains lines of the form

              user:password:resource

              scanimage   uses   this   information   to   answer   user  authorization  requests
              automatically. The file must have 0600 permissions or stricter. You should use this
              file in conjunction with the --accept-md5-only option to avoid server-side attacks.
              The resource may contain any character but is limited to 127 characters.

AUTHOR

       David  Mosberger,  Andreas  Beck, Gordon Matzigkeit, Caskey Dickson, and many others.  For
       questions     and     comments     contact     the     sane-devel     mailinglist     (see
       http://www.sane-project.org/mailing-lists.html).

BUGS

       For  vector options, the help output currently has no indication as to how many elements a
       vector-value should have.

                                           10 Jul 2008                               scanimage(1)