Cannot use scan feature of printers

[austinr76289600]

I am using an iMac Mac OS Montery Ver 12.4 and Acrobat Pro DC continuous release 2022.001.20112.

When I try to Create from scanner using either a Broter MFC-27500 or Epson ET-4760,  although the printers are recognized, after the start is selected, nothing happens.  When I try to quit Acrobat Pro, a message pops up saying

"This operation is not allowed, since scanning is in progress."

Eventually I have to force quit the program.  Both printers have the most recent firmware and both will scan using Apple Preview and Image Capture.

[gary_sc]

Hi Austin,

Scanning from within Acrobat is a kind of a pain because Acrobat has no scanning capabilities whatsoever. What it does do is rely upon other scanning software and sort of leaches onto that. Windows has this a bit better (in a limited fashion) as it can use TWAIN to link up to other applications, in their case, the scanner's software. Mac stopped using TWAIN many years ago because it can be a conduit for computer viruses. 

What Acrobat does on the Mac is to use Apple's "Image Capture" software, which is the worst scanning software I've ever dealt with (and I've been scanning on the Mac since the late 80s).

What you are best served with is to use the scanning software that came with your scanner/printers, and save as a TIF file on your desktop. Then after scanning is complete, drag the file onto the Acrobat icon in the Dock. If all of the files are part of the same document, you will want to click "Yes" when Acrobat asks you to combine the files into one document. Otherwise, click "No."

There are two reasons for scanning to the TIF format: (1) the most important one is that if you do what I mentioned above, Acrobat will open, convert to PDF, AND automatically OCR the document. If you had saved it as JPG, you'd have to do the OCR in an extra step. (2) TIF files are not automatically damaging to files as JPG files (google: "jpg lossy image").

One small extra, a full-page TIF document will be about 8 MB. Once converted to PDF and OCR, it will be between 80-150 kb. So do not be thrown off by the size of the initial documents. Once converted you can toss the TIF files.

[austinr76289600]

Thank you for your detailed explanation and advice. I will do as you
suggest.

Incidentally, I can use Image Capture to scan from both printers.

If Adobe was a startup, or scanning was an obscure feature, or if the
software was free, I would not grumble. But Adobe is a large company with
many engineers, scanning is not an obscure feature, and I am paying for the
software.

If Adobe Acrobat Pro DC relies on Image Capture, and Image Capture works on
both printers, it is mystifying that the system freezes and there is no
error message except the program cannot be closed while scanning.

[austinr76289600]

I wonder is it is a security issue, that is, Mac securtiy will not allow Acrobat Pro DC to access Image Capture.

[gary_sc]

Hi Austin,

I'm sorry, apparently, I did not make myself clear: Acrobat DOES use Image Capture to scan from Acrobat. If you had a PC, when utilizing TWAIN, you could use your scanner's software but PC users have a multitude of issues with that.

For the Mac user, it's just that IMHO, Image Capture is dreadful scanning software. If there's any way to circumvent using Image Capture, you'll be better off. That's why I'm suggesting using the software that came with your printer/scanners.

If you open IC and look at the interface, then try to scan from within Acrobat, you'll see that it's the same software. (You might have to restart your computer to scan from within Acrobat to get past your initial issue.

[austinr76289600]

Hi Gary,

I did understand what you were saying.  My point was that if Acrobat  uses Image Capture and Image Capture can access both printers then logically Acrobat should be able to scan from the printers.  But it cannot.  Whether is is the preferable option for scanning or not is debateable.

I think I have found a fix.  I found another driver on the Epson website.  This option shows up in the list of scanners in Acrobat as Epson ET-4760 Series (ICA) and I can scan a document in Acrobat Pro.

However, I also changed my security settings to allow Acrobat access and thus do not know which action fixed the problem.

[gary_sc]

Hi Austin,

Interesting point: I have never considered that if you have (say) complete permissions for application A, then do you have complete permissions if application B is using A? Good thinking!

Meanwhile, please do yourself a favor and take one representative page and scan it with Image Capture and again with your other software(s). In fact, do it two ways: one with just scan and go, and another time trying to improve the quality of the scan. I mention this because the quality of a scan can have a considerable effect on the quality of the OCR.

Here's a blog I wrote for Adobe some time back:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/adobe-community-professionals/scanning-clean-searchable-pdfs/m-p/4785...

Best,