Canonical is aiming to make the task of scanning documents super simple with version 10.04 Lucid Lynx. Canonical developer Robert Ancell is working on Simple Scan, a great little program that does exactly what it claims – it makes scanning documents simple! Simple Scan is now the default scanning software in Lucid.
Simple Scan makes scanning, emailing, printing and saving documents much less complicated. Sure, many of us geeks might want something like XSane that offers much more control over our scans, but for beginners, Simple Scan should take all the mystery out of scanning. Scanning documents and attaching them to an email in Evolution is now just a few-click process.
Simple Scan offers only the most basic of controls. It lets you choose the type of document you are scanning (photo or text), lets you do basic cropping, then lets you save the scan as a file, email your scans via Evolution or just print. It also handles multi-page documents, allowing you to save them as a PDF file or as a series of JPG images. That’s about all there is to it – it’s simple!
Have you had a chance to give Simple Scan a try? Is it too simple, or just right for beginners and for making quick scans? Leave your comments below!
I think it’s a suitable name for the program, at the least. It’s a quite simple name.
Is this application available for other distro’s also, or just for the bumtu’s. If not, its really kind of pointless.
Running on arch linux right now. It’s in the AUR ;)
I’ve tried it and love it. It is really a great super easy to use app.
Btw, users of karmic can use it as well. Just add- ppa:robert-ancell/simple-scan to your sources list and sudo apt-get update.
Perfect.
Now at last I don’t have to spend an hour explaining the multitude of windows to people who just want to scan a document and don’t give a rats about all that technical stuff, who are confused enough as it is, are afraid they’ll break something.
Just tried it out. Not as full featured as vuescan (which is the only thing I can find for batch scanning slides), but other than that, does the job. I am pleasantly impressed.
“Not as full featured as vuescan”. It’s name, Simple Scan, should have said it all to you – pared down in features in the whole point of it.
@Required : “Is this application available for other distro’s also, or just for the bumtu’s. If not, its really kind of pointless.”
It’s up to you, community user, to get this app going into your favorite distro.
Sources files available here : http://people.ubuntu.com/~robert-ancell/simple-scan/
Perhaps some little changes into code before building, and here it is ;)
You can’t ask a Dev to port his work to another distro, it’s part of community job…
I’m an end user, I don’t code. So your telling us that we “community users” need to all know how to code to use your software. So much for linux being easy. Some of the problem with allot of new ubuntu developers is that they only build their programs for ubuntu’s benifit. Not for the community as a whole. Kind of seems like microsoft proprietaryizm in the ubtunu model. Build fan boy programmers, build ubuntu only programs, force people to use ubuntu linux. Bla, I hate Ubuntu. Ubuntu is the worst thing that ever happened to Linux. The dev is developing for Ubuntu only, there is the problem. If he wants to make a linux program, not just a ubuntu program, he will make it work in other distros just like other real developers do.
Someone asked if it could be made available for another distro, the developer pointed him to the source code (the thing which needs to be given to the other distro for them to include it). At what point did he say anyone needs to be able to _change_ that code?
You don’t need to reprogram the application from scratch for your favorite distribution. You don’t need a graduate degree in computer science to get this up and running. Saying you are an end user and that you don’t “code” does not apply here. The whole point of open source is to eliminate those barriers. To allow the end users to learn and build the application.
It doesn’t take a genius to learn how to package something for your distribution and maintain it, it just takes work and the ability to learn. If you refuse to learn and expect everyone else to learn for you the open source and linux community doesn’t want you and you won’t be missed.
Read a couple wiki’s learn how to compile and package for your distribution and do it. Don’t like it? I’m sure Microsoft is just sitting around waiting to take people like you’s money. Meanwhile I’ll be here enjoying my freedom.
Here’s a thought: Rather than dump on the community, I suggest taking some positive action instead. Make it easy for others to contribute and you’ll get more help.
Why don’t you, dear developer do something sensible like submit this to your upstream repository? You know, Debian?
Or if you’re REALLY on the ball, why don’t you do something really, REALLY sensible like set up a SourceForge site so EVERYBODY can contribute?
You guys are being pretty harsh on the developers of this app. A distribution (Ubuntu, Red Hat, etc) is just a collection of different open source applications and the Linux kernel. The Simple Scan devs have made the source available for anyone and any distro who wants to use it.
If your favorite distro wants to include it, someone from that distro or their community will package it for that distro and make sure everything works well. This is how the distro system works. Each distro takes different open source apps written by different devs and companies and uses them to make their distribution.
For example, the Disk Utility program in Ubuntu was written by Red Hat … but nobody expected Red Hat to make it available for each distro. If Ubuntu wants it, they grab the source code and integrate it with Ubuntu. Easy.
It’s VERY uncool to criticize a developer for work that he’s doing and contributing to the open source community. They have made the code available and made it incredibly easy to contribute and submit bugs, etc. What more do you want from them? Should they come over to your house and set up your scanner too?
Too sad it doesnt do ocr :(. A good gui for an ocr scanning program is something that is really needed in ubuntu. Currently I use Tesseract-gui, but it not even is included in canonical repositories.
Hope simplescan developers consider an ocr feature for it.
There is another program called scan tailor that is a front end to tesseract OCR. Minor problems with it (file extensions are wrong for tesseract), but allows content selection and deskew. It’s in the repositories.
Yes, ocr. That would be marvellous. Probably not going to appear in something called Simple Scan, alas.
Be nice if it would work with one touch ScanSnap scanners to take advantage of the start button.
It would be nicer if Canonical contributed some help to Xsane to develop drivers for more scanners than work on new GUI . Also Flegita is not that bad . But that is just my 2 cents .
Xsane drove me insane. Every time I would update a distro, I would have to start all over again. Would work fine in 7.04, then 7.10 broke it and so on and on and on. Horribly time consuming and costly to deal with.
Finally, with Ubuntu 9.10, I broke down and bought Vuescan and its been joy ever since. I know this goes against the foss and open source ideals, but damn it, I have work to get finished and I can’t knarfle the garfle every time I upgrade. Epson Perfection 4180 is hell to get working under SANE, but Vuescan works and works very well.
JPEG for text!?
You can save as PDF files. I think it defaults to PDF if there is more than one page of if “text” is selected.
This has been needed for a long time. Xsane was always a bit overkill for the average Joe. As for some of the features that some of you are asking for, as this app develops we should see some of those features added.
But it lacks an important thing, you can’t preview quickly and scan to a certain resolution or quality. This will not affect its simple-ness but makes it unusable for medium users.
Looks good and simple to use.
The problem is that the difficulty in scanning in Linux is not xSane or any other user interface, it’s the lack of drivers for many new scanner models, so I guess this will not help as many users as one would have wished for.
The fact that this program still uses older drivers makes building new Ubuntu systems with scanners impossible. Unless someone knows a large cache of slightly-obsolete scanners.
Heh, I seem to have this the wrong way around. I have an old Canoscan N656U which I can get functioning with Xsane nicely and easily but not with Simple Scan; go figure!
I will give it a try, although for the business I run, I generally need a more customizable scan software. Of course, if it can automate some of that work, that would be great.
I think it’s great.
Also, my Canon lide 35 makes the pictures a bit dark. Therefore I cannot use this program yet, but I look forward to when there will be some fine tuning of the brightness/contrast/intesity.
I would like the following:
- a button to save the document on the toolbar (not in v 0.9.9 in Karmic)
- a preview mode… it takes too long when scanning a small cropped area
- autonaming into a predetermined directory
/home/Pictures/Scan/2010-04-01/scan 001.jpg
/home/Pictures/Scan/2010-04-01/scan 002.jpg
/home/Pictures/Scan/2010-04-02/scan 003.jpg
I have tried several Linux distros and prefer to use Linux. However, none that I have tried will setup an Epson TX800FW out-of-the-box. M$oft does, even XP. For all you have to fiddle around with iscan, pipslite etc. These may then work in print mode from OpenOffice and scan mode but will not print from Gimp. Surely if M$oft can do this, Linux distros should be able to do the same.
This is the only thing stopping me from going to Linux completely.
My old Epson also didn’t work by default in Ubuntu 9.10, but “just works” in 10.04 Beta :)
Just upgraded to Lucid. My Snapscan was working fine before, but now neither SimpleScan nor Xsane can find scanner – in spite of putting driver in the right place, fiddling around with the conf file etc etc. RATS!