OT possibly command line scanner program

[Brian K. White]

On 6/16/2010 10:12 PM, Boaz Bezborodko wrote:
>    
>> Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 21:04:25 +0000
>> From: "Ivan"<deweyweekender at yahoo.com>
>> Subject: OT possibly command line scanner program
>> To: "filepro"<filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
>> Message-ID:
>> 	<1142670298-1276722304-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1456893616- at bda817.bisx.prod.on.blackberry>
>> 	
>> Content-Type: text/plain
>>
>> Is anyone using a program that activates scanning either for twain or isis drivers that scan records into a specific folder and file?  We were, but the program we were using we got 10 years ago and isn't in circulation now, and also isn't windows vista compatible and our old scanner didn't have a driver for vista either.
>>
>> I did call the manufacturer of the scanning command program, informatik, and he was pleased to hear how long the program was running for, but could barely remember it : )
>> Sent Using my Blackberry 8350i
>>
>>      
> Although I haven't yet implemented something using it, today's
> multifunction fax/printers have some nice features including one that
> Brother calls Scan-to-FTP.  I set it up on two printers I have so that a
> scanned image gets converted to a PDF and then dropped in a specific
> directory on the server.  You can preload a few profiles (maybe 7) that
> will each save to a different subdirectory.  You can then have FPro look
> to that directory to let the user pick which file to attach or refer-to
> in a record..
>
> One printer was an MFC-7440 (20ppm -$250 at Newegg) and another was the
> MFC-8480dn (30-PPM $370 at Newegg).  They are network ready and also
> emulate Epson and (I believe) IBM print commands so you can print to
> them directly from FPro.
>
> Boaz
> _______________________________________________
> Filepro-list mailing list
> Filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
> http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/listinfo/filepro-list
>
>    

We use ScanCMD50 from informatik (comes with ScanDLL50) on Vista and 7 
with no problem.
I don't see it available on there site any more but the binary we have 
is currently being used on many vista and 7 desks.
Yet, the manual is still there:
http://www.informatik.com/manuals/manual_scandll.pdf
If ScanDLL50/ScanCMD50 was not what you were using, I still have the 
original installer, manual, source examples, and ScanCMD.exe you could 
try. Maybe they will sell you a license, or maybe your existing license 
covers use of this exe and you just need to have a copy of the 
installer. I can supply that if they can't.

However, we just recently switched to twainsave from dynarythmic for all 
new users because it can scan the adf hopper to a single pdf file, and 
automatically falls back to trying the flatbed if the hopper is empty, 
without me having to try to detect that or ask the user or issue 
different command line options. And that greatly simplified and improved 
reliability of my client-side script to scan and upload via http post 
back to the *nix filepro server the user is currently logged in to that 
issues the scan request in the first place via terminal emulator command.

The twainsave one comes in the form of a dll not an exe, but it only 
takes about 10 lines of code to make the exe and I can give you both the 
code and the exe and the instructions for installing completely free 
compiler to rebuild yourself in the future so you don't need me to be 
around to support it.

In both cases, the license allows you to pay informatik or dynarithmic 
just one-time purchase and you are allowed to distribute the exe to your 
users free without making them enter license codes or serial numbers or 
keeping track of copies to pay the vendor per copy. In the case of 
dynarithmic, your license gets embedded into the exe and you are 
supposed to use the exe or the dll as part of some larger app of your 
own. You are not supposed to just distribute the 10 line wrapper exe all 
by itself to the world like shareware/open-source. But you can include 
it in your own app, or distribute to your own customers freely with no 
encumberance.

In both cases one important feature is that the exe does not return back 
to the command line until the scan has finished and the twain source has 
been released.
This allows easy simple "sane" batch file scripting where you issue the 
scan command and then issue commands to do something with the created 
file, and you don't have to figure out some way to detect when the scan 
is done and it's ok to take the file(s). Especially the twainsave since 
it only creates one file for trhe entire hopper. You don't have to know 
or care how many pages are in the hopper.

There is a copy of my twainsave exe in here:
http://install.aljex.com/AljexClient/

It's installed as Program Files/Aljex Client/ts.exe

It has Aljex's license embedded in it, so you can use it all you want 
for testing and evaluation, fully functional, but you should get your 
own license and build your own exe for further distribution. If you want 
you can just get a license and I'll build you an exe since obviously I 
already have the stuff all set up and it's a 2 minute job to paste in 
the number and re-run the same compile I always do.

The manual for the command line options is here:
http://www.dynarithmic.com/onlinehelp/twainsave/

So, for example, the default command line used in "tsu.cmd" from my 
installer is :
ts -f %TEMP%\aljex_tsu_tmp.dat -AF -multipage -F pdf -R 100 -bpp 8 
-color 1 -sd -noui -C 20 -pdfquality 40

For simpler testing you might use:
ts -f out.pdf -AF -multipage -F pdf -R 200 -bpp 1 -sd -noui
(200dpi, 1bpp = fax quality, most efficient by far, but may not be good 
enough. I have to use 8bit greyscale in order to ensure all documents 
are legible enough, and I pay a steep price in file size and network 
traffic and scanner scan speed. I drop the dpi to 100 and use lossy 
compression and set a low set a low 40% quality level to bring it down 
out of the stratosphere, but it's still 2x-3x the filesize of fax quality.)

If you want it to prompt you to select a twain source, leave off the -sd
If you want it to display the twain driver dialog to optionally override 
the scan properties, leave off the -noui

-- 
bkw