scanimage - scan an image
scanimage [-d|--device-name dev] [--format format] [--accept-md5-only]
[-h|--help] [-L|--list-devices] [-f|--formatted-device-list format]
[-T|--test] [-v|--verbose] [-V|--version] [--batch[=FORMAT]] [--batch-
start=#] [--batch-count=#] [--batch-increment=#] [--batch-double]
[device-specific-options]
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 backend (try "apropos sane-" to get a list of available backends).
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 available
device.
The --format format selects how image data is written to standard output.
format can be pnm or tiff to select file format PNM or TIFF. If
--format is not used, PNM is written.
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(1)
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 -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 system administrator to
find out the names of such devices.
The -f or --formatted-device-list option works similar to --listdevices,
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 -T or --test option requests that scanimage perform a few simple
sanity tests to make sure the backend works as defined by the SANE API
(in particular the sane_read function is excercised by this test).
The -v or --verbose options increase the verbosity of the operation of
scanimage. The option may be specified repeatedly, each time increasing
the verbosity level.
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 backend 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.
The --batch* options provide the features for scanning documents 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 the 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=# selects the page number to start naming files with. If this
option is not given, the counter will start at 0. --batch-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 command to work around them. With --batch-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
provided to aid this: --batch-double will automatically set the increment
to 2.
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 dev
The documentation for the device-specific options printed by --help is
best explained with a few examples:
--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 inbetween 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".
--filename <string> [/tmp/input.ppm]
The filename of the image to be loaded.
The descriptoin 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.
SANE_DEFAULT_DEVICE
The default device-name.
/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.
sane(7), xscanimage(1), xcam(1), xsane(1), scanadf(1), sane-dll(5),
sane-net(5), sane-"backendname"(5)
David Mosberger, Andreas Beck, Gordon Matzigkeit and Caskey Dickson
For vector options, the help output currently has no indication as to
how many elements a vector-value should have.
12 Jan 2002 scanimage(1)
[ Back ] |
