It is pretty easy to scan a series of pages into a single PDF file if you’ve got a document feeder. It isn’t so easy to deal with flatbed scanners and multiple pages. Here’s how it’s done Continue reading Flatbed Scanners and Multiple Pages
Category Archives: CmdTwain
CmdTwain Error – Couldn’t scan image
You can get an error message from CmdTwain that says, "Couldn’t scan image." It isn’t a very helpful message, sorry, but that’s because it is one of those error messages that should never happen.
It is like x>10 and x<3 at the same time. It can never happen. In practice though, Continue reading CmdTwain Error – Couldn’t scan image
Document Scanning and Paper Size
Are you having trouble getting scans to be the right size?
I’ve had a few people recently report that their document scans were coming out full size instead of the correct paper size.
One person was doing a web-based solution – document scanning within the browser! (That really impressed me as we seem to be locking things down these days rather than making them more useful. There are important concerns so I’d never thought anyone could navigate through that; but he did.) I suspect there were many problems in getting to that point but the only problem remaining was the scans were coming out the wrong size.
Improved scanning to PDF for CmdTwain
CmdTwain 2.12 has been released and it produces better PDFs for multipage documents.
CmdTwain 2.11 provides a scan to PDF option. It works great for single page scans and it does support multiple pages. But, the two don’t work together quite as intended. People were reporting that the first page scanned was getting placed as the last page in the PDF.
The cause is due to how filenames (for the pages) are sorted within the program. It uses the whole filename including the extension during the sort. For backward compatability reasons, page one is always named (something).jpg and pages two on are named (something)-00002.jpg etc. The character ‘.’ is stored internally with a value of 46. The character ‘-‘ has a value of 45. This always puts "(something).jpg" after "(something)-(anything)" which is not how it needs to be.
CmdTwain 2.12 comes with an improved sort routine that handles these cases properly.
Scan Multiple Pages with CmdTwain
CmdTwain 2.10 was released a while ago and it has some really nice new features. The one that many of you will be interested in is the ability to scan multiple pages.
It has been able to scan multiple pages for a while now but, wow, was it hard! With version 2.10 that changed significantly. Here’s what happened …
Continue reading Scan Multiple Pages with CmdTwain
CmdTwain.exe is not a valid Win32 application
It’s quite amazing really but you can get an error message saying “(something).exe is not a valid Win32 application” when it is. Here’s the story Continue reading CmdTwain.exe is not a valid Win32 application
CmdTwain Scanner Setting Names
CmdTwain has had the ability to send special commands to your document scanner for some time now. It wasn’t widely advertised but a few people who had unusual problems learnt of the unusual settings solution. Here’s the details … Continue reading CmdTwain Scanner Setting Names
Scanning Transparencies
Some document scanners have a special mode for scanning transparencies. This includes medical imagery like xrays, your old collection of 35mm slides and the negatives / filmstrips that used to come with printed photos. Continue reading Scanning Transparencies
CmdTwain 2.02
CmdTwain 2.02 has just been released. It is a minor tweak to 2.01 in that /SOURCE no longer accesses the default scanner (so if you don’t have one you should be able to see that and install or select one). You don’t get a “check cables …” message when simply choosing a scanner.
It also includes an optional GUI (graphical user interface). I suspect most of you get CmdTwain because you can just click on something and have it scan, or run a program from within your program to get a scan. That hasn’t changed. That’s all still there and it works exactly the same way as it always has. However, some people have been asking for a GUI so I’ve added an extra program that pops up a user interface, allows people to choose things, and provides a scan button. When they click that, it runs the normal CmdTwain program.
Continue reading CmdTwain 2.02
The CmdTwain Initialization Process
This might help if you are seeing “TWAIN unavailable” or “… check cables” messages.
Continue reading The CmdTwain Initialization Process
