xscanimage(1)xscanimage(1)NAMExscanimage - scan an image
SYNOPSISxscanimage [--version|-V] [--help|-h] [--display d] [--no-
xshm] [--sync] [devicename]
DESCRIPTIONxscanimage provides a graphical user-interface to control
an image acquisition device such as a flatbed scanner or a
camera. It allows previewing and scanning invidual images
and can be invoked either directly from the command-line
or through The GIMP image manipulation program. In the
former case, xscanimage acts as a stand-alone program that
saves acquired images in a suitable PNM format (PBM for
black-and-white images, PGM for grayscale images, and PPM
for color images). In the latter case, the images are
directly passed to The GIMP for further processing.
xscanimage accesses image acquisition devices through the
SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) interface. The list of
available devices depends on installed hardware and con-
figuration. When invoked without an explicit devicename
argument, xscanimage presents a dialog listing of all
known and available devices. If the environment variable
SANE_DEFAULT_DEVICE is set to the devicename, the device
is preselected in the dialog. To access an available
device that is not known to the system, the devicename
must be specified explicitly. The format of devicename is
backendname:devicefile (e.g. umax:/dev/sga).
RUNNING UNDER THE GIMP
To run xscanimage under the gimp(1), simply copy it to one
of the gimp(1) plug-ins directories. If you want to con-
serve disk-space, you can create a symlink instead. For
example, for gimp-1.0.x the command
ln -s /usr/freeware/bin/xscanimage ~/.gimp/plug-ins/
and for gimp-1.2.x the command
ln -s /usr/freeware/bin/xscanimage ~/.gimp-1.2/plug-ins/
adds a symlink for the xscanimage binary to the user's
plug-ins directory. After creating this symlink, xscanim-
age will be queried by gimp(1) the next time it's invoked.
From then on, xscanimage can be invoked through
"File->Acquire->Xscanimage->Device dialog..." menu entry.
You'll also find that the "File->Acquire->Xscanimage" menu
contains short-cuts to the SANE devices that were avail-
able at the time xscanimage was queried. For example, the
first PNM pseudo-device is typically available as the
short-cut "File->Acquire->Xscanimage->pnm:0". Note that
gimp(1) caches these short-cuts in ~/.gimp/pluginrc.
Thus, when the list of available devices changes (e.g., a
new scanner is installed), then it is typically desirable
to rebuild this cache. To do this, you can either
touch(1) the xscanimage binary (e.g., "touch /usr/free-
ware/bin/xscanimage") or delete the plug-ins cache (e.g.,
"rm ~/.gimp/plug-ins"). Either way, invoking gimp(1)
afterwards will cause the pluginrc to be rebuilt.
OPTIONS
If the --version (-V) option is given, xscanimage will
output its version number.
The --help (-h) flag prints a short summary of options.
The --display flag selects the X11 display used to present
the graphical user-interface (see X(1) for details).
The --no-xshm flag requests not to use shared memory
images. Shared memory images usually enhance performance
but cause problems with some buggy X11 servers. Unless
your X11 server dies when running this program, there is
no need or advantage to specify this flag.
The --sync flag requests a synchronous connection with the
X11 server. This is for debugging purposes only.
ENVIRONMENT
SANE_DEFAULT_DEVICE
The default device-name. Example:
SANE_DEFAULT_DEVICE="hp:/dev/scanner".
SANE_DEBUG_XSCANIMAGE
This environment variable controls the debug level
xscanimage. Higher debug levels increase the ver-
bosity of the output.
Value Descsription
0 print fatal errors
1 print errors
2 print warnings
3 print information messages
4 print everything
Example:
SANE_DEBUG_XSCANIMAGE=3
FILES
$HOME/.sane/xscanimage/xscanimage.rc
This files holds the user preferences. Normally,
this file should not be manipulated directly.
Instead, the user should customize the program
through the "Preferences" dialog.
$HOME/.sane/xscanimage/devicename.rc
For each device, there is one rc-file that holds
the saved settings for that particular device.
Normally, this file should not be manipulated
directly. Instead, the user should use the xscan-
image interface to select appropriate values and
then save the device settings using the "Prefer-
ences->Save Device Settings" menubar entry.
$HOME/.sane/preview-devicename.ppm
After acquiring a preview, xscanimage normally
saves the preview image in this device-specific
file. Thus, next time the program is started up,
the program can present the old preview image.
This feature can be turned off through the "Prefer-
ences->Preview Options..." dialog.
/usr/freeware/share/sane-style.rc
This system-wide file controls the aspects of the
user-interface such as colors and fonts. It is a
GTK style file and provides fine control over the
visual aspects of the user-interface.
$HOME/.sane/sane-style.rc
This file serves the same purpose as the system-
wide style file. If present, it takes precedence
over the system wide style file.
SEE ALSOsane(7), gimp(1), xcam(1), scanimage(1), scanadf(1), sane-
scsi(5), sane-dll(5), sane-net(5), sane-"backendname"(5)
AUTHOR
Tristan Tarrant, Andreas Beck, David Mosberger, and Hen-
ning Meier-Geinitz
1 Feb 2003 xscanimage(1)
