Cool as hell. One thing though: pdf-OCR.sh doesn't completely do OCR, because it doesn't emit ASCII or UTF-8, but instead emits a searchable, and I would guess text-select/copyable PDF. What would need to be changed to emit ASCII or UTF-8 ?
On Wed, 5 Nov 2025 12:18:13 -0700 "T. Zack Crawford via PLUG-discuss" <[email protected]> wrote: > For those interested, I made this command line interface for scanning > PDFs with SANE scanimage (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/SANE) and > adding OCR optical character recognition ( > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract_(software) ). It has a > feature for automatically dimensioning the image to the appropriate > size, or default to letter paper. > > > https://github.com/tzcrawford/dotfiles/blob/main/scripts/in_terminal/scan-wizard.sh > > > > Zack > > On 25/11/04 09:29PM, Steve Litt via PLUG-discuss wrote: > > Hi all, > > > > Where: GoLUG Online: https://meet.jit.si/golug > > When: Wednesday, 11/5/2025 7pm sharp Eastern STANDARD time > > Arrive 15 minutes early for Microphone check & discussion > > Who: Steve Litt, Troubleshooter, Developer, Tech Writer > > What: Linux and Scanners > > > > Getting scanners to work with Linux has never been easy, even for > > those scanners promising Linux compatibility (Brother, for > > instance). Too many moving parts, too little community knowledge, > > and the knowledge there is is often out of date and contradictory. > > Everything's too black-boxy. So for years I operated the scanner in > > my Brother MFC-L5850DW multifunction by scanning to a thumb drive > > and sneakernetting to my computer. A productivity catastrophe. > > > > An email on the Orange County (CA) LUG mailing list reminded me of > > this problem, and I said "hey, this is 2025, and I have ChatGPT > > now". So in 45 minutes, by asking ChatGPT the right questions, I > > was operating my scanner, from Void Linux. Void then worked with my > > exact scanner, in the exact right way. Ancient problem solved. > > > > Void Linux doesn't accept RPM or DEB packages without a lot of > > fooling around, so I had to construct everything the right way. > > Another three hours and I understood the mechanics behind Linux > > scanning. The following is the world's tersest summary: > > > > user<->xsane<->libsane<->brscan5_driver<->scanner > > > > Note: The brscan5_driver could be pretty much any driver for a > > particular model of scanner, regardless of brand, as long as that > > driver can interface with libsane (the SANE API). > > > > At the presentation I'll showcase everything necessary to interface > > a Brother MFC-L5850DW scanner with Void Linux, while at the same > > time making it relevant for any scanner and any distro. > > > > Hope to see you there. > > > > SteveT > > > > Steve Litt > > GoLUG Publicity Coordinator > > > > --------------------------------------------------- > > PLUG-discuss mailing list: [email protected] > > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > > https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list: [email protected] > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss SteveT Steve Litt Spring 2023 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list: [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
