There are 10 scanners in the Kate Edger Information Commons.

There are 4 scanners in the Grafton Information Commons.

Scanning at the IC is free. You can use the scanners to scan images such as photographs to then paste into your document. You can also scan a page of text, save it as an MS Word document and edit the text as you would with a regular document. The scanners use Microsoft Office Document Imaging 1.3 software to create .tif files. This software is available on all computers except the Express PCs.

Scanning and Saving an Image

To scan and save an image:

1. Use your NetID and NetAccount password to logon to an Express PC with a scanner
2. Place the top of your image along the bottom edge of the glass, face down, then close the lid
3. From the desktop menu at the bottom of your screen, click Start > Programs > Microsoft Office Document Scanning
4. Select Color or Black and White, accordingly, then click Scan
5. When the scan is finished, in the menu click File > Save As
6. Type the name of the file in the File name bar
7. Click Save (your image will be saved as a .tif file in My Documents)
8. In the menu click File > Exit
9. In the Microsoft Office Document Scanning screen click Close

Scanning and Saving Text

Scanning a page with text and then saving it as an MS Word file means you can edit the text without having to first retype it. To scan and save text as an MS Word document:

1. Use your NetID and NetAccount password to logon to an Express PC with a scanner
2. Place the top of your page along the bottom edge of the glass, face down, then close the lid
3. From the desktop menu at the bottom of your screen, click Start > Programs > Microsoft Office Document Scanning
4. Select Black and white then click Scan
5. When the scan is finished, in the menu click File > Save as..., name the file and save it in 'My Documents'
6. Go to a Multipurpose PC, logon, and open MS Office Document Imaging
7. In the menu click Edit > Select All > File > Send Text to Word > OK.
8. When the MS Word menu appears, click File > Save As.
9. Type the name of the file in the File name bar and click Save (your text will be saved as an MS Word .doc file in My Documents).

Copying and Pasting an Image

For example, to copy and paste a scanned image into an MS Word document:

1. Go to a Multipurpose PC, log on, and open your Word document
2. Double-click My Documents then double-click the .tif file you scanned earlier
3. Click and hold down the left mouse button to select the area of the image you want to copy
4. Right-click to bring up an action menu then click Copy Image
5. Go to your Word document and click where you want to paste the image into MS-Paint. The image can then be saved in other formats, but the resolution may not be very good. Right-click to bring up an action menu, then click Paste.

Resolving Problem with .tif Image Format

Unfortunately, the .tif files created by the scanners seem to have problems opening in most other programs - both Paint and Adobe Photoshop cannot seem to open them.  This is because their file extension (the .tif) is actually wrong.  Simply changing the file extension will fix these problem.

First, check to see if you can see the file extension for the file.  If the file looks like this: "photo.tif", then you are able to view file extensions on this machine - skip to the 'changing .tif to .jpg' section below.  If it looks like this: "photo", then you'll need to enable the viewing of file extensions.

Enable Viewing of File Extensions

Follow the following steps:

1. Click on 'My Computer'
2. Select 'Tools'
3. Select 'Folder Options'
4. Select the 'View' tab
5. UNTICK the box labelled 'Hide extensions for known file types', then click OK

Once you've done this, "photo" will now look like "photo.tif".

Changing the Image from a .tif format to JPG or JPEG format

To change an image file from a .tif type to any other format:

1. Left click on the file to highlight it
2. Left click on the filename to highlight the text
3. Delete the "tif" and replace it with "jpg"
4. Click somehwere else.  You will be asked if you want to make this change.  Click 'Yes'

The image will act like any other JPEG file and can be opened (and edited) in Adobe Photoshop CS 3, Paint.Net or other supported programs.

At an IC computer with scanner

There are three ways to open Paint:

1. In the Windows Explorer, find any image files that are not .tif format, right click on the file, and select Open with > Paint. The MS Paint program is then opened.
   
   -or-
   
   
2. On the Desktop, right click, select New > Bitmap Image; a New Bitmap Image .bmp file is created on the Desktop, right click file, select Edit, a MS Paint window opens.
   
   In the MS document Imaging window, go Edit > Select All, then right click on the image, select the Copy Image option, back to the MS Paint, paste the image directly and save it as a .bmp or .jpeg format to preserve quality.

After scanning, go to a regular workstation; double click on the .tif file in Windows Explorer (or My Documents), copy the image; open MS Paint from Accessories and paste the image, then change format by saving the file.