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https://github.com/rocketraman/sane-scan-pdf

Sane command-line scan-to-pdf script on Linux with OCR and deskew support
https://github.com/rocketraman/sane-scan-pdf

deskew linux ocr sane scanner scanning unpaper

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Sane command-line scan-to-pdf script on Linux with OCR and deskew support

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README 

        
# SANE Command-Line Scan to PDF



Sane command-line scanning bash shell script on Linux with OCR and deskew support. The script automates

common scan-to-pdf operations for scanners with an automatic document feeder, such as the awesome Fujitsu

ScanSnap S1500, with output to PDF files.



Tested and run regularly on Fedora, but should work on other distributions with the requirements below.



## Features



* Join scanned pages into a single output file, or specify a name for each page

* Deskew (if supported by scanner driver, or software-based via unpaper)

* Crop (if supported by scanner driver)

* Creates searchable PDFs (with tesseract)

* Duplex (if scanner supports it)

* Specify resolution

* Truncate n pages explicitly from end of scan e.g. duplex scanning with last page truncated

* Skip white-only pages automatically (with ImageMagick)

* Specify page width and height for odd size pages, or common sizes (Letter, Legal, A4)

* Performance: scanner run in parallel with page post-processing

* Limit parallel processing for very fast scanners or constrained environments (if sem installed)

* Post-scan open scan output(s) in viewer

* Configuration via default and named option groups



## Requirements



The following dependencies are requirements of the script. See also [Dependencies

Installation](https://github.com/rocketraman/sane-scan-pdf/wiki/Dependencies-Installation).



* bash

* pnmtops (netpbm-progs)

* ps2pdf (ghostscript)

* pdfunite (poppler-utils)

* units (units)

* ImageMagick (if --skip-empty-pages or --ocr is used)



### Optional



* unpaper (for software deskew)

* flock (usually provided by util-linux) (for properly ordered verbose logs)

* tesseract (to make searchable PDFs)

* sem (via gnu-parallels, to constrain resource usage during page processing -- install this if you have a fast scanner)

* bc (for whitepage detection percentage calculations)

* xdg-open (for opening scan after completion)



## Getting Started



```

# scan --help

scan [OPTIONS]... [OUTPUT]



OPTIONS

 -v, --verbose

   Verbose output (this will slow down the scan due to the need to prevent interleaved output)

 -d, --duplex

   Duplex scanning

 -m, --mode

   Mode e.g. Lineart (default), Halftone, Gray, Color, etc. Use --mode-hw-default to not set any mode

 --mode-hw-default

   Do not set the mode explicitly, use the hardware default — ignored if --mode is set

 -r, --resolution

   Resolution e.g 300 (default)

 -a, --append

   Append output to existing scan

 -e, --max 

   Max number of pages e.g. 2 (default is all pages)

 -t, --truncate 

   Truncate number of pages from end e.g. 1 (default is none) -- truncation happens after --skip-empty-pages

 -s, --size

   Page Size as type e.g. Letter (default), Legal, A4, no effect if --crop is specified

 -ph, --page-height

   Custom Page Height in mm

 -pw, --page-width

   Custom Page Width in mm

 -x, --device

   Override scanner device name, defaulting to "fujitsu", pass an empty value for no device arg

 -xo, --driver-options

   Send additional options to the scanner driver e.g.

   -xo "--whatever bar --frobnitz baz"

 --no-default-size

   Disable default page size, useful if driver does not support page size/location arguments

 --crop

   Crop to contents (driver must support this)

 --deskew

   Run driver deskew (driver must support this)

 --unpaper

   Run post-processing deskew and black edge detection (requires unpaper)

 --ocr

   Run OCR to make the PDF searchable (requires tesseract)

 --language 

   which language to use for OCR

 --skip-empty-pages

   remove empty pages from resulting PDF document (e.g. one sided doc in duplex mode)

 --white-threshold

   threshold to identify an empty page is a percentage value between 0 and 100. The default is 99.8

 --brightness-contrast-sw

   Alter brightness and contrast via post-processing - prefer specifying brightness and/or

   contrast via --driver-options if supported by your hardware.

 --open

   After scanning, open the scan via xdg-open

 -og, --option-group

   A named option group. Useful for saving collections of options under a name e.g. 'receipt' for easy reuse.

   Use this option in combination with '--help' to show the location and content of the file and edit it manually.



CONFIGURATION



```



### Configuration



Use `--help` locally to show the location of optional configuration and

pre-scan hook scripts. These scripts may contain environment variables to

pre-configure `scan`. For example the contents of the `default` file may be

something like:



```

DEVICE=something

SEARCHABLE=1

MODE_HW_DEFAULT=1

```



Command line argument `--option-group foo` (or `-og foo`) will read the

`foo` file in the standard XDG home config directory (use `-og foo --help`

to see the exact location) for configuration.



For example, if one wishes to scan receipts always with crop, deskew, unpaper

post-processing, and making them searchable via OCR, a `receipt` option group

can be created by writing the following to a file named `receipt` in the

config directory:



```

CROP=1

DESKEW=1

UNPAPER=1

SEARCHABLE=1

```



Command-line arguments will overwride settings in the default and named

configurations. All command line flags support prefixing with `no-` in order to

override configuration settings. For example, to scan receipts using the option

group above, but without making it searchable, you would do:



```

--option-group receipt --no-searchable

```



### Tips



The default scanner device is set to `fujitsu`. If you have another scanner,

you will need to use the `-x`/`--device` argument to specify your scanner,

or save a `DEVICE=something` line to a local config file as shown above.

See below for how to get the list of available devices.



If running via `scanbd`, scanning occurs via the `net` driver rather than the

usual device driver. In this case, it may be necessary to specify the net

driver device in the `scanbd` script, OR perhaps do not specify any device

at all to let the script choose the best device when running outside of

`scanbd`, and when running via `scanbd`. To do this, use an empty device

i.e. `--device ""`.



The scanners and scanner drivers vary in features they support. This script

provides several options to the underlying scanner driver by default, and

these options may not be supported by your scanner/scanner driver. If

you are receiving an error about `--page-width`/`--page-height` being

unrecognized options, try the `--no-default-size` option. If you receive an

error about the `--mode` value being invalid, try `--mode-hw-default`

and see below for how to retrieve the list of modes that your system understands.



### Helpful Commands



List available scanner devices (for `-x`/`--device` argument):



```

scanadf -L

```



List available device-specific options, including acceptable values for

`-m`/`--mode` and `-r`/`--resolution`:



```

scanadf [-d ] --help

```



## Author(s)



* [Raman Gupta](https://github.com/rocketraman/)



With assistance from

[various other contributors](https://github.com/rocketraman/sane-scan-pdf/graphs/contributors)!

Thank you!



## Blog Post Mentions



The following blog posts talk about scanner automation, and mention use of this

script. If you create a blog post, please submit a PR and add your link here!



* [Stefan Armbruster - Jan 1, 2019 - Running Paperless on FreeNAS](https://blog.armbruster-it.de/2019/01/running-paperless-on-freenas/)

* [Chris Schuld - Jan 8, 2020 - Network Scanner with Fujitsu ScanSnap and a Raspberry Pi](https://chrisschuld.com/2020/01/network-scanner-with-scansnap-and-raspberry-pi/)



## Other Useful Software



* [OCRmyPDF](https://github.com/jbarlow83/OCRmyPDF) - forgot to use the `--ocr` option at scanning time? use this