Scanning in documents

[Chris07]

Problem- I can preview documents, but writer crashes when I hit the scan key.
I have just moved from XP to 7 and have a new Canon Pixma Mg5150. I have also updated from V 3.4.0to 4.1.3
Any help would be appreciated.

[Hagar Delest]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

It is best to scan the pic and save it with a dedicated application (The Gimp is a good free example). Then import it in Writer with the menu Insert>Picture>From file.

Please add [Solved] at the beginning of the title in your first post (top of the topic) with the edit button if your issue has been fixed.

[Zizi64]

...And it is more appropriate to OPTIMIZE the picture (adjust the color depth, the resolution, the physical size, and the filetype) before you embed it into a document.

[John_Ha]

Insert > Picture > Scan > Request ... should start the software which came with the scanner. That being said it is far better to scan the image separately, and insert the image file into the document.

While Gimp is an excellent image processor I find it is rather complex as it has so many capabilities which I don't need.

I find the free IrfanView much easier to use and it does 99% of what I need. Once installed, File > Acquire Batch/Scanning ..., scans a document; and Image > Resize/Resample ..., and other options, processes it.

See [Tutorial] Some useful hints on using images for a discussion on how best to handle images in Writer.

[Chris07]

Thank you for your replies and the welcome to the forum. My old computer was running XP and I had an old Canon Pixma printer. I had no problem scanning documents in Open Office Writer, but now I can only preview. As I said in my question, Writer crashes when I press the scan button.
I'll try the other scan apps as per your suggestions, but it used to be so easy on my old system.
Regards
PS. I have upgraded to 4.1.3 and I'll edit my profile to show that.

[Zizi64]

My old computer was running XP and I had an old Canon Pixma printer. I had no problem scanning documents in Open Office Writer, but now I can only preview. As I said in my question, Writer crashes when I press the scan button.

I suppose the old op. system and the old scanner worked with the standard TWAIN scanning protocol, but now the Win7 is not.

[John_Ha]

I have a Canon scanner which is at least 10 years old. It was bought for XP but runs happily under W7. It uses a TWAIN interface.

Don't forget you need to tell Writer which scanner to use by Insert > Picture > Scan > Select source.

Check the Canon website to see if it needs a new driver for W7 (though W7 should have found it automatically). This page says there are drivers for all versions of W7.

[RoryOF]

You may need to tell Win7 to install the TWAIN driver for the scanner, not the WIA (Windows Imaging Acquisition) driver. If so, I'm fairly sure it will be good to restart Windows so that it picks up the newly installed driver.

[John_Ha]

I checked further. I get error messages if the USB plug is not inserted properly into the scanner saying that my TWAIN device is not communicating.

When I select the source in IrfanView I see only WIA WIA CanonScan LiDE 90 1.0.

When I select the source in Writer I see two sources the second of which is CanonScan LiDE 90 13.0. Both work in Writer though the WIA one takes ages to start scanning.