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Saving scanned document

Howard Brazee

Howard Brazee

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 24, 2006
516
7
Lafayette CO
I have an all-in-one type printer. When I plugged it in, it wouldn't scan, but it would print. When I downloaded drivers, and press the scan button, a scan application came up on the iMac. I can see the preview of the scanned document, but I have not been able to figure out how to save that scanned document anywhere.

We have two needs - to attach several scanned documents to an e-mail, and to fax the documents.

The scanning program appears to be generic Mac - but I'm not finding any option to save the scanned document anywhere - and haven't gotten to any part where it asks me for a file name to save it.

I'm still learning to think Macintosh, so it probably is obvious to old timers what I should do. But it isn't at all obvious to me.
 
Sdashiki

Sdashiki

macrumors 68040
Aug 11, 2005
3,529
11
Behind the lens
Typical of ALL scanning programs is the Preview vs the Scan buttons.

When you PREVIEW an image it takes a FAST scan of the current item.

This lets you see how it will look when scanned, but it has NOT been scanned yet.

You need to set resolution and a crop if any, plus other adjustments if any.

Somewhere in the app should be these preferences, and if not, there should at least be a SCAN button, which differs from PREVIEW in that it uses your settings to scan it more slowly.

hope that helps a bit.
 
wordmunger

wordmunger

macrumors 603
Sep 3, 2003
5,124
3
North Carolina
It would be helpful if you could specify your scanner model and the software you're using. Then others who have it can help you out.

One possibility: your scanner may have installed drivers in photoshop so that you can scan directly from there. Then you can just save using photoshop.
 
Howard Brazee

Howard Brazee

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 24, 2006
516
7
Lafayette CO
The printer is a Epson CX3200. After I pressed <Scan> on the printer a preview came up with some software buttons, including a greyed out <Scan> button. I didn't see any option to un-grey out that button so I could push it.
 
Sdashiki

Sdashiki

macrumors 68040
Aug 11, 2005
3,529
11
Behind the lens
did you try to "crop" the image by dragging the mouse as a marquee over the preview image?

sometimes it wont scan unless you specify an area to scan on the glass, typically its default is the whole glass, but maybe yours is not.
 
Howard Brazee

Howard Brazee

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 24, 2006
516
7
Lafayette CO
Sdashiki said:
did you try to "crop" the image by dragging the mouse as a marquee over the preview image?

sometimes it wont scan unless you specify an area to scan on the glass, typically its default is the whole glass, but maybe yours is not.
Click to expand...

I didn't try to crop the image. I don't know what you mean by "marquee". I didn't see anything to indicate that I want the whole previewed scan, but will look at that when I get home.
 
Macky-Mac

Macky-Mac

macrumors 68040
May 18, 2004
3,502
2,553
Howard Brazee said:
I didn't try to crop the image. I don't know what you mean by "marquee". I didn't see anything to indicate that I want the whole previewed scan, but will look at that when I get home.
Click to expand...

with most scanners, after a preview has been created you have to make sure that the part of the image you want is selected for scanning. On the preview image, you should see a rectangle with a dashed border (or something similar) that defines the area to be scanned. If there isn't one, and I suspect there isn't since the scan button is greyed out, then you'll have to create one which is usually a click and drag action with your mouse. Once you've selected an area of the preview to scan, then you should be able to click on the scan button

(sometimes that dashed rectangle is called a "marquee" tool in some programs)
 
Howard Brazee

Howard Brazee

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 24, 2006
516
7
Lafayette CO
I pressed SCAN on the printer, nothing happened - except the iMac said there was no scan device. So I turned the printer off and on and scanned again.

I selected a portion of the picture, trying to get as close as I could to all of it, and the SCAN button was available. I scanned it, and did a save as.

When my wife got home, she also had to turn off the printer, and she scanned the 3 documents she wanted. Now that we know where the scanned documents are stored (and had the ability to rename them), we went to the iPhoto directory and found a bunch of successfully scanned documents. Apparently the SCAN did scan documents, it just didn't tell us where they were, nor give us an option to rename them.

The next step is to write a cover letter and figure out how to make a 4 page fax.

She has a fax printer set up - which would work for a single fax - maybe we need to put everything in Word first.
 
Eraserhead

Eraserhead

macrumors G4
Nov 3, 2005
10,434
12,250
UK
Load up Image Capture, (Applications/Image Capture) if the scanner is a TWAIN device and is installed properly it should show up straight away. Don't use the buttons on the scanner.

If you need to get the drivers because it doesn't work then get them here (if the link doesn't work go to epson.com)

You want the one with TWAIN.

PS You shouldn't need Word at all, the scan program should save a file to the desktop ;),

PPS You will need to select the area which you want to scan in image capture, it isn't great at that.
 
Howard Brazee

Howard Brazee

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 24, 2006
516
7
Lafayette CO
For now, I created a Word document, and found the Fax in the PDF menu (I never, never would have thought to look in there), and heard the modem squeal for a moment.

I'm guessing the fax may have been sent. Or maybe not.

I can't imagine there's not a way to find how successful the fax was - but how to find out might be as unintuitive as faxing via the PDF menu.
 
Eraserhead

Eraserhead

macrumors G4
Nov 3, 2005
10,434
12,250
UK
Howard Brazee said:
I've got it scanned - to 3 files. What I want is to create a cover letter and fax them all together now.
Click to expand...

Have you got a modem on your Mac? The newer ones (Intel) don't so are unable to fax. Other than that you seem to have done fine. It should come up with something in the menubar, I've found in general it's obvious when you have succeeded, though I've only done it a couple of times.
 
Howard Brazee

Howard Brazee

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 24, 2006
516
7
Lafayette CO
We bought a little dangling USB Apple modem with our iMac - for faxing. We have modems, but the iMac didn't have a place to plug them in.
 
Howard Brazee

Howard Brazee

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 24, 2006
516
7
Lafayette CO
We can call up and find out whether they received our fax last night. But I still need to learn how to get immediate feedback about a fax's success. It really is inconceivable that that feedback was left out of the design - although it was odd that the feedback wasn't obvious.

It must be there somewhere.
 
S

softgoodsint

macrumors newbie
Dec 12, 2012
5
0
Howard Brazee said:
I have an all-in-one type printer.
... but I'm not finding any option to save the scanned document anywhere - and haven't gotten to any part where it asks me for a file name to save it.

Hi Howard, sorry that this is, oh, about six years later (got a time machine handy?)... BUT yes, I had the same situation (aggravation) - the "obvious" (to Mac users perhaps, which I'm not) is that, as the poster below indicated, we are initially seeing the "preview" scan. The "SAVE AS" is grayed out in the "FILE" menu. The "SCAN" button is there, but when I press mine I get a message like "scan of selected area complete" (I don't remember exact wording, but it did nothing). It dawned on me, I had to go to "EDIT" and "SELECT ALL" to make the selection area the whole scan, as I was in a state with zero real estate in the selection zone. Once I did a select all, the "SCAN" button worked and I did have a "SAVE AS" enabled and worked as expected. Be sure to name the file as it will default to the name most recently used from prior scan, making overwriting a previous file a risk.
Hope this helps, it sure slowed my day down (not that it wasn't already slowed by other factors).
Best Regards
Click to expand...
 
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