Many scanners are automatically supported by Ubuntu, and should be easy to install and operate. This section will walk you through how to use your scanner and what to do if Ubuntu does not detect your scanner.
There are three ways to see if you scanner works in Ubuntu:
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Simply plug it in and try it! If it is a newer Universal Serial Bus (USB) scanner, it is likely that it will just work.
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Check the list of supported scanners for Ubuntu.
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Check the SANE project listing of support scanners. SANE is the software used by Ubuntu for most of its scanner support.
To scan a document:
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Place what you want to scan on the scanner.
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Click → → .
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Alternately, pressing the scan button on the scanner should also work.
There are two reasons why you might get this message:
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Your scanner is not supported in Ubuntu. For example, most parallel port scanners and Lexmark All-in-One printer/scanner/faxes are not supported.
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The driver for your scanner is not being loaded automatically.
You may be able to get your scanner working by installing a driver or altering some configuration files. Please ask for advice on the Ubuntu forums or similar.
![[Note]](../../libs/admon/note.png)
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To get some scanners working, you may need to plug in the scanner after the computer has booted. |
There are some scanners that have less than complete drivers from the SANE project. They can sometimes be used, but not all the features may work.
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Install the libsane-extras package.
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Press Alt+F2, type
gksudo gedit /etc/sane.d/dll.confinto the box and click to open the SANE driver file for editing. -
Enable the right driver for your scanner by removing the “#” from in front of the name of the driver. You may need to search the web to find out which driver is the right one.
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Save the file and open Xsane ( → → ). Your scanner will hopefully work.
