Using PDF Studio, you can directly scan your paper documents into PDF documents. This should allow you to work towards a paperless office and save time and trees.

PDF Studio, like many other cross-platform applications, uses TWAIN (or Sane under Linux) to communicate with a scanner. TWAIN and Sane are standard frameworks allowing applications to communicate with scanners in the same way independently of the scanner itself or the operating system.

If you're experiencing issues when scanning from PDF Studio, please try our troubleshooting tips below:

Tip 1: Update to the latest drivers

Download the latest driver for your scanner from the manufacturer website. A listing of computer scanner manufacturers and links to the drivers pages can be found on this page http://www.computerhope.com/drivers/scanner.htm

Even if you have already used your scanner from other applications don't assume you have the latest drivers. PDF Studio connects to your scanner using the Twain driver (Sane driver under Linux) while some other native applications use another driver to connect to your scanner. So it is possible that your Twain driver needs to be updated.

Tip 2: Make sure scanner works in other applications

Make sure that your scanner is installed properly and works in other applications starting by the software that comes with your scanner.

On Mac, check that the Image Capture application sees your scanner. Open your imaging software, go to File, Import, Choose your scanner (and use the TWAIN acquire option if available) and scan a page.

On Mac still, an Error Grabbing Scan might happen because your scanner has not yet been initialized for the user used to log in.

If it's the case, you should get an "Error grabbing scanner" but at the same time, you should see appear a dialog that had to do with setting up your scanner. On this dialog, you need to associate the Mac ID with the scanner. Once you do this, you should be to scan fine in PDF Studio.

Tip 3: Scanning under Snow Leopard

Snow Leopard users, please note that our scanning library is currently incompatible with java 64-bit and only works in java 32-bit. Snow Leopard ships with both but is set to use Java 64-bit by default. If you're using PDF Studio 6.10, we've already set it up to use java 32-bits. But if you're using an earlier version, you will have to set PDF Studio to always open using the 32-bit java instead of 64-bit by doing the following:

1. find PDF Studio using the Finder
2. Hold down the Control key and click the file
3. from the menu, select Get Info. Click on the "Open in 32-bit mode".

Also note that Twain requires Rosetta to run. If you haven't installed Rosetta on your mac, you will be prompted to install it.

Tip 4: Scanning under Linux

PDF Studio uses Sane under Linux to communicate with a scanner. For PDF Studio to connect to the scanner properly, you need to make sure that you have a saned daemon and at least one sane backend installed. This is not requirement for other products such as XSane and Gimp. Here is a useful link on setting up a Sane daemon: http://penguin-breeder.org/sane/saned/

Tip 5: Try another scanner driver

Sometimes you will have multiple drivers installed for your scanner. Make sure you try another driver if the first one doesn't work. For instance with a scanner / printer Canon MX700, there are 2 ways of scanning: using the WIA Canon MX700 or using ScanGear.

Tip 6: Reset your scanner

This is the standard tip if your scanner used to work in PDF Studio but stopped working.

1. Turn off your scanner
2. Unplug the scanner from your computer
3. Wait a few minutes
4. Plug it back in and turn it back on
5. Try again