Scanning using VBA

[bmc1234]

I'd like to be able to automatically scan a document from an access form. I want to have a button that scans an image and saves it to a specific location automatically. I've been searching online for this and it seems that there are activex controls that can do this, but they all cost money. Is there any free/open source control that can enable me to use a scanner through VBA code? Thanks.

 

[Ed2020]

I used to think I had at least *thought* of everything somebody would want to do in MS Access (even if I didn't actually know how to do it). This forum proves me wrong on a regular basis!

I am running Office 2003 and don't have a scanner - so I'm unable to test any of this, but:

I am able to add a reference to a library called "Microsoft Office Document Imaging 11.0 Object Library". This has methods that appear to relate to scanning of documents and images. I'm pretty sure this would do what you want it to. You may find the following MSDN article helpful:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa167607(office.11).aspx

Ed Metcalfe.

Please do not feed the trolls.....

 

[bmc1234]

Ed,
That object model looks handy, but doesn't do what I need. at the bottom it says "MODI automation provides powerful document management and OCR features; however, it does not automate the document scanning process itself or support image annotation."

What I want to do is automate the scanning process.

 

[OhioSteve]

Well, I have a guess about this topic. Maybe you need to focus on getting Access to talk with some normal scanning software.

 

[jkl0]

You can start from here and see if any of these might work for you.

http://www.sharewareconnection.com/titles/scanner-activex.htm

 

[justjayne]

Hi, I'm new, but was interested to hear about your project. I had a similar problem and did not find any freeware. In the end I bought a piece of sofware called
Scan To PDF by a company called OImaging.
It automated beautifully from Access VBA, allowed me to specify filenames and paths, worked with my elderly Fujitsu scanner, scanning with both single sided and duplex docs, allowed a free download for testing prior to purchase from their website and compared to other solutions that I looked at such as Omnipage 15, was fairly cheap. At the time I bought a license, the price was about £60, which is not as good as free, but it "did exactly what it said on the tin".
Good luck with the project. Regards JustJayne

http://www.oimaging.co.uk/products/scantopdf.html

 

[bmc1234]

Hi justjayne,

for this project I ended up downloading a program called vintasoft twain, which is an activeX control that I put into my access form. With a little bit of coding I was able to almost fully automate the process of scanning. This program has an unlimited free trial that can be used with some limitations, such as no scanning in color, but for me it works fine.

 

[rickyoswaldiow]

I thought that all office programs could capture images from scanner/camera, surely there would be an inbuilt function in vba to execute this? Or maybe write macro?

 

[Jtorres13]

bmc1234,

Can you post some code examples? I also have VintaSoft TWAIN, but their sample codes crash on Access 2003. I'm doing this for church and can't spend a whole lot of money either.

I need to click a button, scan, save to folder in local drive, and add image to record as easy as possible since users are not very computer savvy. Save record. Rinse and repeat.

 

[Jtorres13]

Oh Oh, I almost got it. I'm getting stuck on the type of object to put in the form to hold the image. If I drag the Image control, it wants me to select a specific file, it own't let me put an empty Image control in the form. And the Bound and Unbound Object controls don't work.

Any ideas?