OT: recommended scanner->PDF software?

[Lobster]

I've recently acquired an old Kodak i30 sheetfed scanner, with a view to being able to chuck multiple-page documents at it and collect a PDF file at the other end. In other words, very straightforward requirements - I don't need lots of fancy colour balancing options, OCR, anything like that. The scanner came with a copy of its original software, something called Kodak Capture Lite, and although I installed this, it's unbelievably complicated, I *cannot* make head nor tail of it or make it work properly and have now officially given up on it!

My system is Windows 7; I have the TWAIN driver for the scanner, so it really shouldn't be rocket science... I've tried a couple of downloadable programs which seem to be recommended - "scan2pdf" (just crashed all the time), and PDF-Xchange (which I already use as a PDF reader, but it won't easily prepare multi-page PDFs from a scanner). I've used Scansoft Paperport to good effect in the past - I really liked that, but would need to pay for a new version of the modern equivalent (~£30 IIRC?) - wouldn't object if necessary, but from current experience I'd rather be reassured that it would definitely work before paying up...

Any recomendations please?

[Andy Burns]

PaperPort came with my Visioneer scanner, I have no complaints with it.

[Owain]

Irfanview will make multipage PDFs from a group of images; I don't have a scanner so haven't explored its TWAIN interface but it does have one.

Owain

[Roger Mills]

I have Irfanview *and* a scanner - albeit Epson rather than Kodak. I've just tried it out, and there's good news and bad news!

The good news is that Irfanview can drive a scanner via its TWAIN interface and can create multi-page files, and can create PDF files.

The bad news is that - unless I'm missing something - the multi-page feature only applies when you're creating TIFF files. Also, when invoked the scanner from Irfanview, the usual Epson User Interface popped up - so the Kodak one would probably do the same!

All is not lost though. If you have a free PDF writer program (pseudo printer) such as Bullzip, you can 'print' the TIFF file to a PDF file, and then delete the TIFF. Not quite as convenient as doing it in one go, but it works.

Alternatively, you can create individual PDF files (one per page) and then use a free utility such as PDFTools to combine them into a single file.

OR get a better scanner. The software which came with my Epson jobbie can scan multiple pages into a single PDF file without any further frigging about.

[Lobster]

Hmm - what version's that? 14 seems to be the latest; I used to use v9 IIRC; but it seems a lot of people have complained about post-9 versions

[The Natural Philosopher]

a way I have used in desperation when my scan program - or the scanner - kept crashing every few pages - was to simply fire up libre office, insert the pages into a doc and export as pdf.

Ugly, but it works.

Could even use MS Word...

[GB]

Curiously enough, I'd recommend using Acrobat (not the reader). Isn't there an out-of-date but freely-downloadable version on their website?

[Mike Barnes]

Lobster :

It won't?

I recently bought a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 scanner which, though not cheap, works a treat. I just bung a load of mixed-size papers in it and it scans them into one large PDF, after removing blank pages, deskewing the rest, and rotating as required.

Occasionally pages need rearranging a bit (e.g. folded leaflets which I have to cut apart before scanning). The scanner came with its own editing software and with Acrobat but I didn't find them as convenient as PDF-Xchange (paid version). PDF-Xchange does drag and drop and rotate pages which is sufficient for my needs, and *fairly* convenient.

I'm surprised by the poor usability of all the software I've looked at so far. Presumably there must be relatively unskilled office workers doing this sort of thing all the time, but nothing I've looked seems suitable to me.

[Lobster]

Yes I'd thought about that one; however that version is 7.0 which apparently isn't Windows 7-compatible :(

AFAIK it's one reason why Adobe don't mind making it available.

[Lobster]

Not here - it just prepares an individual PDF file from each page... I did look on their forum and found others whinging about this, and there was a workaround for it but a bit tortuous compared with what I want (and what you seem to be getting!) I only have the free version, but AFAICS this multipage thing is not a feature of the paid-for option, or I'd probably just go ahead and buy it.

Do you know different?

+1 But I wonder if most office workers tend to use stand-alone machines for this task - that's certainly the case in all the offices I've worked in recently: you chuck paper in the hopper of a big 'public' printer/copier/scanner and by the time you get back to your desk there's a PDF attachment to an email sitting in your inbox.

[Mike Barnes]

Sorry, my mistake - it's the software that came with the scanner that stitches them together, not PDF-Xchange.

But with PDF-Xchange I can drag pages from one document to another. So in your place I'd scan all my pages, then drag the page from document 2 to the end of document 1, then do the same for document 3, etc. After doing that for each page I'd save document 1 and ditch the rest. It's not fantastically convenient but it gets the job done. I suspect you need the paid version, though.

Well, that's basically how my scanner works without any extra software. What I was meaning is that often I want to split the PDF, re-order pages, rotate pages, delete pages that aren't relevant, crop, and otherwise convert a raw scan into the desired end product. That ought to be simple enough, but with the software I've used, it isn't.

[Fred]

Any idea where on their web site? I've just had a quick look and could not find it. I have a pdf that has one page that will not print (it pops-up a "drawing error" message) and I am looking for something to fix it. TIA

[RJH]

[Windmill]

There's also the ghostscript package, which was in the long ago only available for DOS and Unix, but must by now also be available for Windows. On Linux it does most of the things I require, though I sometimes have to switch to a Ubuntu system in order to be able to print the latest pdf formats (there seems to be a race to develop new incompatibilities).

[Steve Firth]

Windmill wrote: [snip]

if your aim is to produce PDF documents in Windows using Ghostscript there is CutePDF which does much of the useful work done by Acrobat but it is free.