Chantilly, VA  — March 20, 2020 -- Contex, the world leader in large format scanning, today announces a series of ten how-to video tutorials for the Nextimage scanning software. The tutorials provide step-by-step instructions to help new and experienced users to boost their scanning workflow while attaining top-quality results with their Contex large format scanners. The tutorials are available at Contex’s YouTube channel. ​

​“With today’s circumstances, customers are setting up their large format scanners at home, making these tutorials extremely helpful,” comments Steve Blanken, General Manager, Contex Americas. “These videos provide useful guidance for basic and complex scanning projects, and customers can view them at their own pace. Our customer support team is also readily available to answer any questions that customers may have.”
The Contex video tutorials address the following topics:

• Batch mode: Tips and tricks on how to get the most out of the batch scanning feature.
• Adaptive threshold: Learn how to clean up backgrounds in line drawings.
• Applying borders: Instructions on how to apply borders.
• Soften/smooth: Tips on how to soften and smooth images.
• Rotate: Learn how to rotate in 90 degrees segments and fine-adjust with manual rotation increments of 0.1 degree.
• Auto black and white and creating presets: Learn how to improve scans with auto black and white, and how to make a new preset.
• Image cropping: Instructions on how to crop and save.
• Oversized scanning: A comprehensive guide on how to scan oversized documents.
• Paper handling: Get to know paper handling and the link between speed and image quality.
• Choosing settings: Guidance for choosing the correct settings, which can drastically speed up the scanning process.

Additionally, Contex published a general video, which shows an overview of the functions and possibilities of Nextimage software for its range of large format scanners.
For more information, visit www.contex.com or email info@scanext.com.my
About Contex
As the world’s leading developer and producer of large format imaging solutions, Contex drives the market with innovative technology and advanced scan and copy software applications. Sold worldwide in more than 100 countries, Contex solutions are recognized in a wide range of industries for reliability, value, high performance, and superb image quality. For more information, please visit www.contex.com.

MARCH 22, 2020 BY GISUSER
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WIA (Windows Image Acquisition), introduced by Microsoft since Window Me, is the driver platform delivered with the Windows OS, including Windows 7, Windows 8, etc. It enables applications to acquire images from all kinds of digital cameras and scanners. It sounds very similar to TWAIN, doesn’t it?

Both TWAIN and WIA can work with scanners and cameras as long as the driver is installed. Generally, if your application is going to interact with scanners most of the time, especially if old scanners need to be supported, TWAIN is recommended. For cameras, WIA offers better support. But, sometimes TWAIN based applications can communicate with WIA devices, such as scanners or cameras, via the “TWAIN compatibility layer”.
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There are other differences between TWAIN and WIA. TWAIN has three transfer modes(native, memory, file) while WIA has only two (memory, file). TWAIN enables device vendors to create a customized user interface for each driver. WIA uses a simplified user interface for all devices, based on a scripting object model. If you only need basic scanning functions, WIA is enough. If you need to use more sophisticated features of a scanner, such as different options for each page when scanning in duplex mode, TWAIN should be your choice.

ISIS (Image and Scanner Interface Specification) is a proprietary scanner interface developed by Pixel Translations in 1990 (today: EMC Captiva).

Unlike TWAIN, produced by a non-profit organization, ISIS doesn’t come for free. Scanner vendors need to pay a royalty fee in order to use the ISIS driver. Although ISIS was originally targeted for a production environment (higher volumes, supporting advanced features of high-end scanners), the high cost is driving vendors away. As a result, ISIS is not popular in enterprises.
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Moreover, despite ISIS’s reputation in performance, many developers also claimed that no obvious technical advantage is identified when comparing ISIS to TWAIN.

SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) is an application programming interface (API) commonly used in UNIX (including GNU/Linux). SANE is an open source project. You can download its source code (latest version 1.0.24) at http://www.sane-project.org/source.html .
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Unlike TWAIN, SANE separates the user-interface (front-end) from the driver of a device (backend). The SANE driver only provides a backend interface, with the hardware and the use of a number of “options” to drive each scan. One example of an option to define the scan area is as below,

So now have you got an idea and made up your mind?
Below is a comparison table for these 4 drivers that summarizes what was mentioned above.

Make no mistake, using a wide-format printer can be an expensive proposition that makes producing traditional office documents seem downright economical. After all, everything is bigger, including the printer's price tag, the paper and how much ink you need. 
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All of this adds up to a potential budget buster. If your company is struggling with the expense associated with creating banners, posters and marketing materials (but you need a wide-format printer), there are several ways to curtail the costs. From buying ink in bulk to combining prints, there's a lot you can do without sacrificing the printed materials your company counts on. 
Here are eight ways to reign in wide-printing costs.

1. Bigger is better with ink cartridges.
It might seem counterintuitive, but one of the easiest ways to save money on wide-format printing is to buy the largest ink modules you can get. That's because as the ink module's size increases, the ink's cost drops quickly. It's the same ink, it just costs less. 
For instance, Canon sells three cartridge sizes for its iMagePROgraf Pro-4000 series: 160, 330 and 700 milliliters (ml). The cost of the ink declines from 61 cents per milliliter for the small (160 ml) cartridge to 52 cents per ml for the medium one (330 ml) to 42 cents per ml for the large (700 ml) cartridge. Overall, it can add up to significant savings. 
Better yet, printers that don't utilize ink cartridges can save you even more. Some printers, like the LUS 150 formulation that the Mimaki JFX 2000 uses, contain ink reservoirs. When a particular color of ink is running low, you simply pour ink from a bottle into the appropriate reservoir. It can be messy, but the cost is approximately 10 cents per ml of ink. [Interested in buying a wide-format printer? Check out our best picks.] 

2. Use draft mode.
The easiest way to shave wide-format printing costs is to avoid using top resolution or photo-quality settings for works in progress. Instead, print in draft mode. You'll get a print that is suitable for marking up and soliciting comments on while slashing 20 to 40 percent of your costs. 
You may be able to configure the printer's default settings so that an item is automatically set to print in draft mode. Users must then manually change the printer's setting to print an item with high resolution for final prints. 

3. Combine print jobs.
Wide-format printers create large printed items that other devices can't produce. But smaller items can be combined to cut costs, save time and reduce paper use. 
Say, for example, that you have 10 prints to make ranging in size from 24 x 36 inches to 48 x 60 inches on your Roland Soljet EJ-640. They can be printed individually or arranged across the EJ-640's 64-inch wide bed. They're printed more quickly, and there's less waste (but the prints will need to be trimmed). 
Some printer manufacturers include nesting software, like Epson's Layout Manager, that optimizes placement of individual prints on the sheet to help you make the most of your print jobs. 

4. Faster printers allow for greater efficiency.
We're always in a hurry to get the print job done, but a faster printer can be a great way to further lower expenses and make the printer pay for itself, because the more you use it, the less it costs per item printed. 
Take printing a dozen D-sized (24 x 36-inch) posters with HP's PageWide XL 6000 printer. It's capable of producing them in less than a minute, leaving the printer ready for its next job. This increases the printer's capacity utilization while lowering the cost per item. You might even be able to consolidate costs by eliminating slower printers in your office and instead using one fast device. 

5. Two rolls are better than one.
It may seem like an inconvenience, but a wide-format printer that can switch between two or more paper rolls easily can be a money saver. This is because you don't need to waste 10 or 15 minutes taking the old roll out, inserting the new one and feeding the paper properly. With a dial-roll device, you select the right paper size in the setup menu, just like you would with a regular printer if you were printing legal-sized documents versus letter-sized items. 

6. Reduce paper waste with print preview and overseeing printing.
One of the best ways to cut paper and ink costs is to train employees to use the Print Preview function before they print their project. This step eliminates a lot of mistakes and waste. 
It's also a good idea to monitor your print job. The paper doesn't always feed straight into the printer or the ink isn't always laid down evenly. If you catch it early, you can start again with less waste. 
Some printers, like Epson's SureColor P20000, have a sensor hidden near the print heads that monitors the print, detecting any changes in ink density variations, paper skewing and slack. If it detects a problem, it corrects it instantly so there are fewer wasted prints. 

7. Cut repair bills with an extended warranty.
Wide-format printers are complicated, expensive machines, and there's nothing worse than having a broken machine sit idle. That's where an extended warranty comes in. 
For instance, it costs about $2,200 to extend the original one-year warranty for Canon's imagePROGRAF iPF785for an extra year. It's money well spent, because in the event the printer requires a major repair, the costs to repair the printer coupled with the costs to your business in terms of delays, productivity, etc., are astronomic compared to $2,200. 
Check to make sure the extended warranty is transferable should your company sell the printer. 

8. Limit employee use and require necessary approvals.​
Finally, one of the best ways to reduce printing costs is to limit its use. Curtail access to the printer to only those employees who need to print and monitor who's printing what. 
HP's SmartTracker software works with all PageWide XL devices to control the printing process, including who can and cannot print on the device. It also shows who is using the printer with helpful graphs and can estimate per-page costs. 
Another bonus to this approach is that you can charge back the use of this companywide resource to those departments that use it most.

​“A good file name helps to identify its content and context without having to open the file itself.”

It’s true! If the file name is good enough, there will be no difficulty sorting the files. If you can name the scanned files according to your own logic, it must be super easy to find the correct one!

Speaking of the file names for scanned files, I think most people will think of the serial number, or the format of date and time! Of course, such a file name is not a problem for scanning, the problem is in the subsequent filing and classification. Since you want to scan the document into an electronic file, you definitely want to find it more convenient and efficient in the future. It is better to know the file type from the file name, so we usually modify the name of the scanned file manually!

Modify the name of the scanned file manually!!!

That is to open the file one by one to see what the content is, then rename each file one by one!!!
What!! How long does it take to do this!!
Should it be so annoying to sort the scanned files! ?

Previously we had mentioned the “barcode as the filename”, and the “multi-naming formats” of the combinations by prefix, suffix, the serial number and the date & time to help you to manage the scanned document. If you are still worried that you cannot find the file you are looking for, no problem, we have another powerful trick – FTS full-text search!
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A full-text search is a comprehensive search method that compares every word of the search request against every word within the document or database. In other words, no matter how small your clues are, you can find the file you are looking for, SUPER!

Plustek exclusively developed the DocAction II program that has built-in ”Add Index to Filename” file naming format. After each scan, you can select the indexes you want to add to the filename from the text. These indexes can help you to associate with the file content upon seeing the filename. It’s not only increase the connection with the file content, but also save the file through the optical character recognition, all the content texts are read out, and the full text search can be performed through the FTS Manager.
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Let’s take a look at how the elf completes the file-search job through FTS full-text search!
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