xscanimage(1)

NAME
xscanimage - scan an image

SYNOPSIS
xscanimage [--display d] [--no-xshm] [--[no-]show-events] [--sync] [--debug-level n] [devicename]

DESCRIPTION
xscanimage 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 configuration. When invoked without an explicit devicename argument, xscanimage presents a dialog listing all known and available devices. To access an available device that is not known to the system, the devicename must be specified explicitly.

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 conserve disk-space, you can create a symlink instead. For example, the command

    ln -s /usr/local/bin/xscanimage ~/.gimp/plug-ins/

adds a symlink for the xscanimage binary to the user's plug-ins directory. After creating this symlink, xscanimage will be queried by gimp(1) the next time it's invoked. From then on, xscanimage can be invoked through "Xtns->Acquire Image->Device dialog..." menu entry. You'll also find that the "Xtns->Acquire Image" menu contains short-cuts to the SANE devices that were available at the time the xscanimage was queried. For example, the first PNM pseudo-device is typically available as the short-cut "Xtns->Acquire Image->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/local/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

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 --show-events flag requests the display of X11 events. This is for debugging only. Flag --no-show-events turns off the display of X11 events.

The --sync flag requests a synchronous connection with the X11 server. This is for debugging purposes only.

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 xscanimage interface to select appropriate values and then save the device settings using the "Preferences->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 "Preferences->Preview Options..." dialog.

/usr/local/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 ALSO
gimp(1), scanimage(1), sane-dll(5), sane-dmc(5), sane-epson(5), sane-hp(5), sane-microtek(5), sane-mustek(5), sane-net(5), sane-pnm(5), sane-pint(5), sane-qcam(5), sane-umax(5)

AUTHOR
Tristan Tarrant, Andreas Beck, and David Mosberger