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Application Icon   Capturing Paper (Image Capture)

DEVONthink comes with built-in support for Image Capture compliant scanners, as well as for the Fujitsu ScanSnap.

OCR: DEVONthink optionally makes scanned documents searchable by using optical character recognition (OCR). OCR adds an invisible text layer to the scanned file that is computer-readable and searchable; a layer that is recognized by DEVONthink's AI engine. OCR on scans is generally enabled by default. For best results we recommend scanning at 200 dpi in color and with 100 percent quality.

Note: If you are using a Fujitsu ScanSnap, see the next section.

To capture paper using an Image Capture compliant scanner open the Import sidebar using View > Import or selecting the icon over the sidebar. It is divided into a sidebar and a main pane, which changes depending on your selection in the sidebar. The options in the sidebar are arranged from top to bottom according to a typical scan workflow: Scan, check the scanned pages, arrange the pages in a document, and save them to the database.

If you are using a scanner with an automatic document feeder (ADF), you can also use a Queue to prepare a pile of sheets for batch processing and scan them in one go.

Devices

Select your connected scanner or camera in the Devices section of the sidebar to run a scan or download images from a connected iOS device or camera. The main pane shows an interface similar to what Apple Image Capture uses.

Choose the scan destination in the To pop-up menu. Either send the scan directly to any of your databases, add them as single files to the Imports section, or choose any binder that you have created there.

Scanners: DEVONthink generates an overview scan of the current page in the scanner, and allows you to select which parts of the page you want to capture and set the scan options. Click Scan to capture the page.

Cameras: DEVONthink shows the available images. Select the images you want to import, rotate them if necessary, and click Download or Download All to download the images to your computer. You can also delete images from your camera with the Delete button.

Imports

The Imports section contains scanned pages or binders of collected scans. Create empty binders here to which you add your scanned pages. Alternatively, use the Create new Binder button at the bottom of the sidebar.

Add pages by dragging them from to the desired binder, in the current view or the sidebar. Rearrange added pages if desired and set the document properties by clicking the Properties button. Use the Sort button to reverse the sort order or shuffle pages, e.g., when scanning all front pages first, then the back pages. Choose Sort and Merge Documents to merge two documents where one contains all the odd pages and the other all even pages.

Note: You cannot save multi-page documents as images; therefore, PDF is the only option for the file type here.

Trash

This is where you find images that you have deleted from Scans & Images or Imports. Empty the trash using the Empty button at the bottom of the window or right-click or Control-click images to add them to an existing or new document using the contextual menu.

Queue

If you are using a document scanner with automatic document feeder, you can use the queue to add multiple pages or even multi-page documents to the feeder and scan them in one go.

Choose your scanner in the pop-up menu above the list. Then use the Add and Delete buttons to add or delete steps and rearrange them by dragging. Edit the fields to set a title or tags, or to change the document type or destination. Check OCR to convert a scan to a searchable PDF after import.

To scan a batch of paper, set the Separator either to Page Count and the number of pages in the document or to Blank Page to begin a new document every time a blank page is encountered.

Before starting the batch run, adjust your scan settings by clicking the Configure button. If you want to convert the scans to searchable PDFs, you should choose a resolution of minimum 300 dpi. Then click the Start button to start scanning. Finished steps are marked as "Sent". To remove finished items from the list, select the ones to remove and press the minus button at the bottom of the window. Alternatively, click the dropdown button and choose Remove Sent or Remove All.