#Twain sane windows how to#
#Twain sane windows full#
#Twain sane windows portable#

On systems with multiple scanners, allow the user to select which scanner they want to use.

#Twain sane windows how to#

How to check if the system offers scanner support ( e.g.The sample project (available below) demonstrates this technique, so feel free to download that instead of copying-and-pasting the code from this page.īecause this project is focused on the basics of using a scanner, it demonstrates only the following: (Alternatively, a /plugins/ sub-directory could be used.) We do this by adding the following code to the General Declarations section of the project: So the best solution, in my opinion, is to tell VB to expect the DLL to appear in the same folder as the project itself. It is possible to load a DLL from other locations using the regsvr32 command, but I don’t like regsvr32 because it adds additional entries to the user’s system registry, and it must be re-run every time the project is moved to a new folder. applications that can be run without requiring an installer), because it requires the user to manually copy files into their system folder… and that’s bad for a variety of reasons (security, potential for mistakes, etc).

#Twain sane windows portable#

This is not ideal when developing portable applications ( e.g. By default, VB6 will attempt to load a DLL from the computer’s system folder. It should work without a problem.īonus tip: how to load DLLs from any locationīecause a 3rd-party library is required to access a scanner in VB6, it is useful to know how to load a DLL from any location. If you would like to download a newer version of the library, simply copy the new version of EZTW32.dll into the same directory as the executable file (or. The sample project includes a copy of v1.19 of the EZTW32 library. Private Declare Function TWAIN_AcquireToFilename Lib 'EZTW32.dll' (ByVal hwndApp As Long, ByVal sFile As String) As Long Private Declare Function TWAIN_SelectImageSource Lib 'EZTW32.dll' (ByVal hwndApp As Long) As Long Private Declare Function TWAIN_IsAvailable Lib 'EZTW32.dll' () As Long While the EZTW32 library provides many ways of interacting with the scanner, this project will focus on the following:

#Twain sane windows full#

A full description of the “pro” version’s feature set is available here. The paid version includes many advanced features, and if you are interested in anything beyond simply capturing images from a scanner, it may be worth a look. There are two versions of the EZTW32 library: a free, public-domain library - called “classic” - and a more sophisticated, paid version - called “pro.” This project utilizes only the classic version. You can check for a newer version of the library here. (The first version of EZTW32 was released in 1994!) This project uses the most recent version of EZTW32 at the time of this writing: v1.19, updated 2009.02.22. My preferred choice is the free, public-domain EZTW32 library, which I have happily used for many years. As a bonus, it also provides support for TWAIN-compatible digital cameras.īecause VB6 does not include a native scanner library, some sort of third-party DLL is required for scanner access. Today’s project demonstrates how to implement full scanner support from within a VB6 project.