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I'm writing scripts to scan various medical documents with a Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 following a blog from Neil Brown that inspired me to buy the same model.

Dependencies

sudo apt install sane-utils imagemagick

• sane-utils provides scanimage
• imagemagick provides magick (only needed for --pdf mode)

Finding your scanner's device string

Power on the scanner, connect it via USB, then run:

scanimage -L

This will print something like:

device `fujitsu:ScanSnap iX500:343632' is a FUJITSU ScanSnap iX500 flatbed scanner

The string fujitsu:ScanSnap iX500:343632 is your device identifier. The trailing number (serial) will differ between units. Update the -d flag in run.sh if yours differs.

Usage

./run.sh          # scan to PNG files in the current directory
./run.sh --pdf    # scan and merge into a single timestamped PDF

Output files are written to the directory you run the script from.

Notes

• Scanning is duplex (double-sided) at 300 DPI
• In PNG mode, each page is a separate numbered file (e.g. out1.png, out2.png)
• The script exits immediately if scanimage is not found