Quote:
Originally Posted by zynizen  I have the CanoScan LIDE 70, with a MacBook Pro.
I downloaded the drivers from Canon, installed fine, software works, but this thing has a few buttons on it. None of them do anything, what I bought it for was its cheap price, and the ability to "scan to pdf"
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With all the verbage in your post, it is difficult to figure out what works and what does not. Let me share two opinions with you: For a Mac user, scanning to PDF is a gimmick. The buttons on the scanner are also a gimmick. To work they have to control the computer. I don't want my scanner controlling my computer.
A little personal background. I recently purchased a Canon CanoScan 8600F. I love it. Like your scanner, it features buttons for everything from scanning color or monochrome to emailing your scanned image. Now think about this: what earthly good is a button on the scanner to email an image? You can't type in the recipient(s) email address(es) from the scanner. So you still have to return to the computer to address and send the email!
The scanner shipped with software from Canon, including a TWAIN driver. The TWAIN driver works. However, the scanner works best with the MacOS X utility
Image Capture.
Photoshop Elements 4.0,
GraphicConverter, and
Canvas X using TWAIN work OK, but not nearly as well as
Image Capture.
Scanning to PDF for a Windows user is a convenience for several reasons. The traditional scanned image format is TIFF. However, TIFF files tend to be large. Also, Microsoft has declared TIFF to be an Apple technology and does not support it. To use TIFF, Windows users must have QuickTime installed. TIFF has been the raster graphics format for MacOS X since it was called
NeXTstep. FWIW, my superiors love to email scanned memoranda and letters to my colleagues and me. They embed them in
Word documents for distribution.
To the Mac user, PDF is a non-issue. Like TIFF, it is built into the OS. I can scan to TIFF, the best format for scanning. The scan is saved in whichever graphics format I want--including PDF.
The takeaway message is don't be such a Windows user. You have a good scanner attached to great computer. Learn to make the most of the combination.