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Questions tagged [scanning]

Converting a physical document into digital form

Scanning is the process of taking a physical document and converting it into digital form.

An example is when a user wants to have a digital copy of their tax return or shopping receipts so that they can post it up on reddit for the karma shower and do not want to do the mainstream thing of taking a photo of it with their thumb in shot.

Most scanners will import a document as an image format. Certain applications can perform optical character recognition to turn the document into an editable form.

For computer hard disk checkups, see

For network or host port scanning, see

See also

191 questions
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How can I ping a range of IP addresses simultaneously

I have a bunch of machines on an IP address range which I want to ping simultaneously as a quick and dirty way of telling which ones are switched on. What (free) software can I use to do this? I'm using Windows Vista.
Jon Cage
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3 answers

How do you output a QR code to the linux cli terminal for scanning?

I want to be able to output a QR code to the ubuntu cli terminal where I can scan with my phone. I have a configuration file I want to convert to a QR code so I can scan it vs having to transfer it over a usb drive. Many of the google results only…
Patoshi パトシ
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28
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2 answers

How to scan multiple pages into a single pdf in Windows 10?

It can't be so difficult! There are similar questions in this forum but they're years old. Anyone has any smart solution on how to do this in a simple way? I've tried Windows Fax and Scan and the new Scanner App in Win 10. The first one simply…
Naceira
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23
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6 answers

How to implement a "scanner" effect on Linux to fix documents with varying darkness of background?

I use Linux, and sometimes I need to make a document printable when it was photographed in a very imperfect way. A page from a rather complicated example that I recently needed to handle is this one: Usually, playing with levels or curves produces…
Mikhail Ramendik
  • 521
19
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8 answers

Looking for simple Windows scan (multiple pages) to one PDF application?

I would like to find some simple scan software for a Windows machine that can scan to PDF, but I would like it to do batch or multiple pages into one big PDF. I saw a couple questions on scan to PDF software, but did not see anything talking about…
Troggy
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18
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9 answers

Software to help me go paperless on a Mac

I purchased an Epson GT-S50 scanner (similar to Fujitsu Scansnap, but with TWAIN drivers). I am already using Evernote. I am not sure I want to flood my Evernote notes and code snippets with tons of receipts, business cards, and other paper clutter.…
deadprogrammer
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18
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1 answer

Scan-to-PDF software for Linux?

I have a workflow whereby I scan paper documents into searchable PDFs using a Fujitsu ScanSnap S500 document scanner. I am not a great fan of the bundled software, but it's dead simple to use: place a stack of paper at the top, push the green button…
NPE
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15
votes
8 answers

Enable OCR in Greenshot

I run Windows 10 with Microsoft Office professional Plus 2016 on my computer. Looks like MS OCR functionality is enabled in my system since OneNote is able to copy text from image. But how to enable this functionality for Greenshot? Currently I…
vico
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13
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1 answer

How to auto-trim scanned images using imagemagick or graphicsmagick?

I've got some scanned images in *.jpg format. They are scanned using A4 scanner, in greyscale or colour. Scanned pages have very different dimensions - some A5, some A6, some business cards etc. Scanner cover is white. I want to trim all the white…
Arek
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12
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4 answers

How can I crop every page of a large PDF file?

I have a 1300 page PDF file of a scanned book that was unfortunately not cropped when scanned. The actual book page dimensions are around 6x9", but each scanned page is 8.5x11", the size of the scanner bed. For much smaller PDF files I could throw…
Andrew
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5 answers

Is there a free tool which will let me type onto PDFs and then save, or at least print, them?

I have a large number of paper forms which I need to complete. I'd like to scan them in, then type the answers onto them in the relevant spaces and print them out, rather than writing on them with a pen (my handwriting is terrible). I can scan and…
Tom Robinson
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11
votes
7 answers

Detecting blank image files

I am using scanimage with a document scanner (Canon DR-2510C) that supports duplex scanning. Unfortunately, its SANE driver does not support blank page detection, so that with mixed pages (single/double-sided), blank pages make it into the scan…
Thilo-Alexander Ginkel
  • 213
11
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4 answers

How to get a good clean newspaper scan?

I tried a few times to scan newspaper articles, but the images I got were always blotchy and with bad colors, sort of like this: Sometimes I see some really good scans, like this: What is the trick to get such good results? Do I need a…
itsadok
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10
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4 answers

Can I import sheet music to play on a PC?

My daughter is learning to play recorder and cello. She gets sheet music home to practice. Is there any way that I can scan the sheet music onto my PC, and play it on the PC? It would be useful to know about both ends of the price scale. My own aim…
Calum
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10
votes
3 answers

How can I easily correct slight rotational misalignment in scanned images

I've got a whole lot of scanned images (> 500) the majority of which were scanned with the paper not completely square. They need to be rotated about 1-5 degrees to be aligned again. Is there any software that does this? I know some scanner drivers…
AndrewR
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