Manual: scanimage
scanimage(1) SANE Scanner Access Now Easy scanimage(1)
NAME
scanimage - scan an image
SYNOPSIS
scanimage [-d dev] [--format=output-format] [-i profile] [-L] [-f device-format] [-b [format]]
[--batch-start=start] [--batch-count=count] [--batch-increment=increment] [--batch-double] [--ac‐
cept-md5-only] [-p] [-o path] [-n] [-T] [-A] [-h] [-v] [-B size] [-V] [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, scan‐
image 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 Ac‐
cess 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 `ep‐
son:/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, scan‐
image 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=output-format
selects how image data is written to standard output or the file specified by the --out‐
put-file option. output-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=device-format
works similarly 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, pro‐
duced 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 op‐
tion. 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 con‐
tinue 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 mul‐
tiple 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 incompat‐
ible 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 per‐
form 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 1MB to size KB.
-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 informa‐
tion 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 de‐
vice. 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 ex‐
amples:
-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 back‐
ends 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 ap‐
pears. 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 op‐
tions typically depends on the settings of other options. For example, the --custom-gamma ta‐
ble 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 ap‐
propriate 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 gamma4scan‐
image can be used to generate such gamma tables (see gamma4scanimage(1) for details).
--filename [/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 --ac‐
cept-md5-only option to avoid server-side attacks. The resource may contain any character but
is limited to 127 characters.
SEE ALSO
sane(7), gamma4scanimage(1), xscanimage(1), xcam(1), xsane(1), scanadf(1), sane-dll(5), sane-net(5),
sane-"backendname"(5)
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)