Bulk Scanner HOWTO

How to use the bulk scanner

1. Log into the scanner. If you don't have a login, talk to Susan Jackson.
2. Push the "Advanced Functions" button (this is a physical button, not on the display screen).
3. Select "Scanner" on the touchscreen. There are some options here you can change if you like. If you know the size of the paper you're scanning, put it in here--this will speed up the scanning process as it won't have to try to figure out paper size on its own.
4. Now put your stuff in the scanner--if you're scanning something small, like a book, it may work better to put it in the feeder short side first; big stuff, like paper, works better lengthwise.
5. Once you start scanning, watch for mis-feeds, especially with thin paper such as books. The computer next to the copier should change its status to read "scanning".
6. When scanning is finished, the file will appear in the folder labeled "Scan Jobs" on the desktop (it may take a couple minutes for the file to transfer from the copier, especially for many-page scans). You can ftp into the machine (gutenberg.cc.gt.atl.ga.us) using login "guest" and password "guest". Your file will be named <ip>-<date>-<id>.tif, where <ip> is the IP address of the scanner, <date> is the current date, and <id> is a time-based ID stamp for the file. The file is a multipage, compressed tiff file.

Notes

There is a bandsaw in the Human Movement Studies lab in room 348 that you can use to cut the spine off of your books.

Converting from TIFF to PDF

tiff2ps -2 -a *.tif > blah.ps
distill blah.ps

tiff2ps lives in /usr/local/public/bin -- note that you have to add /usr/local/public/lib to the front of LD_LIBRARY_PATH if you don't do that already. distill is an Adobe product and only runs on a few machines; one of them is "forge".