Scanner scans but doesn't create pdf

Report · Dec 28, 2023

I have a Brother MFC-7840W printer/scanner and a Mac running OS 13.6.1, and recently when I try to scan a document, it only works about half the time. When it doesn't work, it appears to scan - it creates a preview and when I click Scan, I can hear the scanning head moving across the document - but no pdf window appears after it. There is no error message.

Any ideas how I can get it to create the pdf?

Report · Dec 28, 2023

Hi @Stu Janis,

I recently shared the following with a PC user who had different issues but was also frustrated at the inability to scan through Acrobat Pro with their PC. Maybe you'll find something of use in the following.

Acrobat cannot scan, at least not by itself. There is NO scanning function within Acrobat. Rather, Acrobat uses other software to do the scanning. On a PC, this is done via a "linking" software called Twain. On the Mac, Twain is not allowed for the same reasons they kicked off Flash (too many potential virus issues). So what they do instead is to provide a TWAIN link to Apple's "Image Capture." (If you cannot scan through your scanner's native software, see if you can scan through Image Capture.)

Unfortunately, Image Capture is a major piece of **** scanning software. It is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the quality of the scan.

I encourage you to continue scanning with your scanner’s software, save your scans in the TIF format, and leave the files on your desktop (or wherever convenient). Then, you can drag the files onto the Acrobat icon in the Dock. If you save the files as TIF images, Acrobat will automatically OCR them; there's nothing else you have to do. If you drag more than one file onto the Acrobat icon, Acrobat will ask you if you want all of these files merged into one document or to remain as separate documents. (If you save in any other format, the auto OCR dynamic will not happen, and you'll need to add to your workload by adding an OCR step to your activities.)

Some extra tips and bits of information: A full-page, 300 ppi, 8-bit TIF file will be about 8 MB. (16-bit will be about 16 MB); once they are processed into a PDF, they will drop down to about 100-150 kb, so do not worry about the size. Assuming that you've done a pre-scan to set the Levels settings to get a clean image and you're doing a stack of pages from the same source, there's no need to do subsequent pre-scans. The first scan will be document.tif. The 2nd document will be document (2).tif, the third will be document (3).tif., etc. When you process those in Acrobat, the first scanned page will end at the end of the PDF as the last page. You can either fix this in the "Organize Pages" or, before processing in Acrobat, change the name in the Finder for document.tif to document (1).tif. (There's no way around this because this is up to the Finder or Explorer for naming, not the scanning software.

View solution in original post

Report · Dec 28, 2023

Hi @Stu Janis,

I recently shared the following with a PC user who had different issues but was also frustrated at the inability to scan through Acrobat Pro with their PC. Maybe you'll find something of use in the following.

Acrobat cannot scan, at least not by itself. There is NO scanning function within Acrobat. Rather, Acrobat uses other software to do the scanning. On a PC, this is done via a "linking" software called Twain. On the Mac, Twain is not allowed for the same reasons they kicked off Flash (too many potential virus issues). So what they do instead is to provide a TWAIN link to Apple's "Image Capture." (If you cannot scan through your scanner's native software, see if you can scan through Image Capture.)

Unfortunately, Image Capture is a major piece of **** scanning software. It is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the quality of the scan.

I encourage you to continue scanning with your scanner’s software, save your scans in the TIF format, and leave the files on your desktop (or wherever convenient). Then, you can drag the files onto the Acrobat icon in the Dock. If you save the files as TIF images, Acrobat will automatically OCR them; there's nothing else you have to do. If you drag more than one file onto the Acrobat icon, Acrobat will ask you if you want all of these files merged into one document or to remain as separate documents. (If you save in any other format, the auto OCR dynamic will not happen, and you'll need to add to your workload by adding an OCR step to your activities.)

Some extra tips and bits of information: A full-page, 300 ppi, 8-bit TIF file will be about 8 MB. (16-bit will be about 16 MB); once they are processed into a PDF, they will drop down to about 100-150 kb, so do not worry about the size. Assuming that you've done a pre-scan to set the Levels settings to get a clean image and you're doing a stack of pages from the same source, there's no need to do subsequent pre-scans. The first scan will be document.tif. The 2nd document will be document (2).tif, the third will be document (3).tif., etc. When you process those in Acrobat, the first scanned page will end at the end of the PDF as the last page. You can either fix this in the "Organize Pages" or, before processing in Acrobat, change the name in the Finder for document.tif to document (1).tif. (There's no way around this because this is up to the Finder or Explorer for naming, not the scanning software.

Report · Dec 28, 2023

Interesting. I don't think I've ever used the printer's software to scan, so I looked at the documentation. The printer is so old that its documentation talks about a Macintosh TWAIN scanner driver. Makes me wonder why it works at all!

I also hadn't tried Image Capture, and that did the trick - Thank you!!

Report · Dec 28, 2023

Several things here: TWAIN is used on the Mac but only for certain connections such as Image Capture -> Scanner. If your scanner's software is old, check with the manufacturer and see if they have an update to your current OS. [There was a time when my scanner, Epson, was not being updated, but the uproar was sufficiently great that they started developing the software for newer OSs.

The other thing that using good software provides is a better chance to do a good scan at the beginning of the scan. I'm sure you saw (and maybe have done yourself) that when you scan documents with print on both sides, you can see the text on the other side in the scan. Besides being a bit ugly, it can also interfere with any OCR process done later.

You can see some suggestions on how to fix that in a blog I wrote for Adobe a number of years ago. One aspect that has become outdated is the adjustment options provided by the scanner's software. While never as good as (say) Photoshop's features, it wasn't that far off. The closer you make a good scan at the onset, the better everything else is going to be after that.

I hope you find value in this; good luck!

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