scanimage
(1)
Name
scanimage - scan an image
Synopsis
scanimage [-d|--device-name dev] [--format format]
[-i|--icc-profile profile] [-L|--list-devices] [-f|--format-
ted-device-list format] [--batch [=format]] [--batch-start
start] [--batch-count count] [--batch-increment increment]
[--batch-double] [--accept-md5-only] [-p|--progress]
[-n|--dont-scan] [-T|--test] [-h|--help] [-v|--verbose]
[-B|--buffersize] [-V|--version] [device-specific-options]
Description
SANE Scanner Access Now Easy scanimage(1)
NAME
scanimage - scan an image
SYNOPSIS
scanimage [-d|--device-name dev] [--format format]
[-i|--icc-profile profile] [-L|--list-devices] [-f|--format-
ted-device-list format] [--batch [=format]] [--batch-start
start] [--batch-count count] [--batch-increment increment]
[--batch-double] [--accept-md5-only] [-p|--progress]
[-n|--dont-scan] [-T|--test] [-h|--help] [-v|--verbose]
[-B|--buffersize] [-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) or in TIFF (black-and-white, grayscale or
color). 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 back-
end (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
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).
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The -d or --device-name options 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 avail-
able device.
The --format format option selects how image data is written
to standard output. format can be pnm or tiff. If --format
is not used, PNM is written.
The -i or --icc-profile option is used to include an ICC
profile into a TIFF file.
The -L or --list-devices option requests a (partial) list of
devices that are available. The list is not 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 sys-
tem administrator to find out the names of such devices.
The -f or --formatted-device-list option works similar to
--list-devices, but requires a format string. scanimage
replaces the placeholders %d %v %m %t %i with the device
name, vendor name, model name, scanner type and an index
number 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 the features for scanning docu-
ments using document feeders. --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) will be used. 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 0. --batch-count count specifies the number of
pages to attempt to scan. If not given, scanimage will con-
tinue scanning until the scanner returns a state other than
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OK. Not all scanners with document feeders signal when the
ADF is empty, use this command to work around them. With
--batch-increment increment you can change 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. A specific command is pro-
vided to aid this: --batch-double will automatically set the
increment to 2. --batch-prompt will ask for pressing RETURN
before scanning a page. This can be used for scanning multi-
ple pages without an automatic document feeder.
The --accept-md5-only option only accepts user authorization
requests that support MD5 security. The SANE network daemon
(saned) is capable of doing such requests. See saned(8).
The -p or --progress option requests that scanimage prints a
progress counter. It shows how much image data of the cur-
rent image has already been received by scanimage (in per-
cent).
The -n or --dont-scan option 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).
The -T or --test option 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 func-
tion is exercised by this test).
The -h or --help options request help information. The
information is printed on standard output and in this case,
no attempt will be made to acquire an image.
The -v or --verbose options increase the verbosity of the
operation of scanimage. The option may be specified repeat-
edly, each time increasing the verbosity level.
The -B or --buffersize option changes the input buffersize
that scanimage uses from default 32*1024 to 1024*1024
kbytes.
The -V or --version option 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 back-
end that it loads. Usually that's the dll backend. If more
information about the version numbers of the backends are
necessary, the DEBUG variable for the dll backend 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,
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the exact set of command-line options depends on the capa-
bilities 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 indi-
cates that the option is currently set to Gray. For
convenience, it is legal to abbreviate the string val-
ues as long as they remain unique. Also, the case of
the spelling doesn't matter. For example, option set-
ting --mode col is identical to --mode Color.
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--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 pos-
sible 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
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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 autho-
rization 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.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following
attributes:
+---------------+-----------------------------------+
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+---------------+-----------------------------------+
|Availability | image/scanner/xsane/sane-backends |
+---------------+-----------------------------------+
|Stability | Uncommitted |
+---------------+-----------------------------------+
SEE ALSO
sane(7), gamma4scanimage(1), xscanimage(1), xcam(1),
xsane(1), scanadf(1), sane-dll(5), sane-net(5), " .}S 3 1
"sane-backendname"" "(5)" "" "" "" ""
AUTHOR
David Mosberger, Andreas Beck, Gordon Matzigkeit, Caskey
Dickson, and many others. For questions and comments con-
tact the sane-devel mailinglist (see http://www.sane-
project.org/mailing-lists.html).
BUGS
For vector options, the help output currently has no indica-
tion as to how many elements a vector-value should have.
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NOTES
This software was built from source available at
https://java.net/projects/solaris-userland. The original
community source was downloaded from ftp://ftp2.sane-
project.org/pub/sane/old-versions/sane-backends-1.0.19/sane-
backends-1.0.19.tar.gz
Further information about this software can be found on the
open source community website at http://www.sane-
project.org/.
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