Anyone Using The Canon P-150 Or P-215 Scanner?

[beeinformed]

Hi!

I am interested in purchasing the Canon P-215 scanner and would like to find out if this scanner can save a document to microsoft word format as there is software (new soft presto page manager) that comes with this scanner that has that capacity (at least I think so).

I would appreciate it if anyone who has used either the Canon P-150 (which also comes with the new soft presto page manager) or the P-215 could comment on whether or not they are able save a document to microsoft word. Thanks!

 

[MisterMe]

There is this remarkable thing called the Internet. Canon has something called a website on the Internet where it reveals all sorts of secret information like the answer to your question. The Canon imageFORMULA P-215 Scan-tini Personal Document Scanner and the imageFORMULA P-150 Portable Scanner are both fully Mac-compatible. Scanning to Microsoft Word is a Windows thing. Mac compatibility is all about Image Capture and ISIS/TWAIN.

Image Capture offers the option of TIFF, JPEG, and PNG. Photoshop and many other raster graphics applications on the Mac are TWAIN-compatible. They can save scanned images in any of their supported formats. My Canon's software does PDF, but so too does virtually every other Mac application that can print. I don't use Canon's software. I use Image Capture and, on rare occasion, a couple of TWAIN-compatible image editors.

 

[beeinformed]

Hi,

I had contacted Canon's technical support department about the P-215 scanner and I was told that the "new soft presto page manager software", is not something Canon directly supports because it is considered a "third party software" and so I was told they're not sure if this software will be able to save a document to microsoft word.

I would like to add that I have "pages" installed on my mac computers (which allows you to save your iwork documents as a word format) so I thought that if the "new soft presto page manager software" has the ability to save a scan to word format (combined with the pages software), I would be able save a scanned document to word format.

As this is not an inexpensive purchase, I wanted to find out from other members if they were able to save a scanned document to word format on their Canon P-150 or P-215 scanner and if not I would buy another scanner.

 

[MisterMe]

OK. Forget Canon's software. Third-party, schmird-party--it is waste of space on your hard drive. I wouldn't delete it, but neither would I use it. As I said in my previous post--Image Capture, Image Capture, Image Capture! Image Capture ships with every Mac and is the application to use for scanning. Some third party scanning applications use Image Capture as their foundation. Image Capture stores its scanned images in your Pictures folder by default. If you don't like Image Capture, then you may use any other [TWAIN-compatible] raster graphics editor. Photoshop is a beast. Photoshop Elements is a cub--a very able cub. I love GraphicConverter, very much the poor man's Photoshop. It is shareware that acts as fully-functional nagware until you pay the shareware fee. However, I strongly recommend that you pay the fee because the application is that good.

I told you that scanning to Word was a Windows thing. It is also a very bad idea. Here on the light side, we scan to TIFF, JPEG, or PDF. With GraphicConverter or Photoshop/Photoshop Elements, we may use any of a myriad other formats as well. We may import graphics in these formats into Word, Pages, or any other word processor all day long.

It is unclear why you want to scan to Pages and save as Word. However, distributing Pages documents that have been converted to Word is also a bad idea. This is not a knock on Pages, it is knock on Word. You should never send a converted Word document to others until it has been proofed in Word. Otherwise, you run the significant risk of unexpected results.

Did I remember to say Image Capture?

 

[MBHockey]

Anyone using this scanner on Mountain Lion? Every app i try to use with it says "scanner not found"

Image Capture doesn't even show it in the device list when it's connected. I downloaded the latest driver from Canon but it didn't help (it was released two days before Mountain Lion).

 

[charleylhasa]

Anyone using this scanner on Mountain Lion? Every app i try to use with it says "scanner not found"

Image Capture doesn't even show it in the device list when it's connected. I downloaded the latest driver from Canon but it didn't help (it was released two days before Mountain Lion).

Try turning the Auto Start switch on the back of the scanner to the OFF position. (I had the same issue, but doing this solved it.)

From a note included with the scanner (with my added emphasis):

When scanning with ISIS/TWAIN applications, set the Auto Start switch on the rear panel of the scanner to the "OFF" position. When the Auto Start is set to the "ON" position, documents can only be scanned using the CaptureOnTouch Lite utility built into the scanner.

 

[kraypsu]

Try turning the Auto Start switch on the back of the scanner to the OFF position. (I had the same issue, but doing this solved it.)

From a note included with the scanner (with my added emphasis):

I have had the P-215 scanner and recently bought a MacBook Air. I have Mavericks OS. I am having the same difficulty. I can use the scanner when using CaptureOn Touch software, however, twain compliant app's including Preview do not recognize the scanner. I have set the scanner to Auto Start "off", been to Canon USA site, consulted the users manual, searched the web/forums, reloaded the software, completed software updates on the MacBook, and rebooted and reconnected the scanner multiple times. Nothing has worked. Any help would be appreciated even if I learn that OSX won't work with the P-215.

 

[robgendreau]

NO to Image Capture with at least the P-150 and probably P-215. It uses TWAIN drivers, NOT Image Capture plugins (or drivers or whatever they're called).

Scanners take pictures of things. So even if you scan a page of print, it takes a picture of that print. Just like your phone would. Most scanners, including the ones here, then produce an image file. These can produce jpgs, tiffs, or PDF. Most folks use PDF. But it's a picture PDF; you can't search the words you see. The are pictures of text, not text. PC capable scanners, like these, do the same. Word can open these images (and Word can do that on a Mac too), but it's pretty useless, since Word is a word processor, not an image processor.

There is software out there to convert pictures of text into text; search for OCR software. Some online services can do it, like Evernote, Google, and others. Or try like Abbyy Fine Reader. You scan using one of these to get a picture, then run it through the OCR software that reads it.

The Canon software isn't too bad for just the scanning. It will scan stuff straight into Evernote, which can then OCR it for you. Other TWAIN compliant software can do so as well; I use GraphicConverter, although it isn't super useful for documents. Make sure to get a TWAIN compliant application, NOT one that only uses Image Capture.

And here's why some are probably having trouble, and why I wouldn't recommend these scanners, even though I love my P-150: Canon is still using 32 bit TWAIN drivers, and many applications cannot use these. I know that's for sure the case with the P-150; probably for the P-215 as well. Very lame. Don't buy; look at maybe the Fujitsu alternatives.

If you have software that can use TWAIN, then try opening it in 32 bit mode. I do this with Graphic Converter, and it finds the scanner and works as expected. I have no idea if Canon is gonna fix this, but since most applications on newer Macs are running 64 bit these scanners are rather useless and I'd avoid them.

 

[kraypsu]

NO to Image Capture with at least the P-150 and probably P-215. It uses TWAIN drivers, NOT Image Capture plugins (or drivers or whatever they're called).

....Canon is still using 32 bit TWAIN drivers, and many applications cannot use these. I know that's for sure the case with the P-150; probably for the P-215 as well. Very lame. Don't buy; look at maybe the Fujitsu alternatives.

If you have software that can use TWAIN, then try opening it in 32 bit mode. I do this with Graphic Converter, and it finds the scanner and works as expected. I have no idea if Canon is gonna fix this, but since most applications on newer Macs are running 64 bit these scanners are rather useless and I'd avoid them.

Thanks for your input gobfendreau. I appreciate your time and effort. I was using Preview in Mavericks which can use TWAIN, but was not aware of the 32 bit issue. I tried, unsuccessfully, to find a setting in Preview that would allow me to change the settings to 32 bit mode. I was trying to add pages to a doc that I scanned in CaptureOn Touch using Preview. I will deal with simply rescanning the doc with the additional pages.

I found an article on MacManus.nl that may possibly fix the issue ( http://macmanus.nl/2013/11/28/use-unsupported-scanner-in-mavericks/ ) but I am not comfortable enough yet using Mac to make such changes to my machine. I am a PC guy for the last 30 years and have had a Mac for 3 days now. I will live with it. Thanks again.

 

[robgendreau]

Get older Canon Scanners to work with Mavericks!

No, thank YOU kraypsu!

I was aware of the SANE TWAIN drivers, but had problems with that.

The easier solution is another one janegil figured out, to install the TWAINBridge.app. It allows Image Capture to use the installed Canon drivers (assuming you've already installed the latest Canon software for the P150). You don't need to install the SANE stuff, which is a bit more complex.

Just go here: http://janegil.net/2014/01/twain-scanners-in-os-x-maverick/

Download the installer and run it. Then Image Capture should find your scanner. Many applications have an "Import...>Scan with Image Capture" type menu (like Devonthink Pro, or GraphicConverter), so use that. Or the Image Capture application itself. Won't matter if your applications are 64 bit.

Outstanding! BTW, it worked with my Canoscan 8800F as well.