Using Microtek Scanners with OSX

Microtek is one of those flame-worthy companies that puts the Macintosh logo on their product boxes to fool customers into thinking their products are fully Mac OSX compatible. Bungholes. But I've beaten them, mostly, at their incompatibility game.

Their ScanMaker 4850 model, like a lot of consumer-grade scanners, has buttons on the front to perform functions like scan photo, e-mail photo, print photo, etc. According to tech support, the buttons aren't supported on OSX. But I figured out how to make them work:

• Install the latest version of the Scanwizard software, if you haven't already.


• You'll get a ScanWizard 5 Folder. Inside is the application Microtek Scanner Configuration (MSC). Launch it.


• Right-click on MSC and select "Keep in Dock."


• Select the "Scan" tab.


• You'll get a number of options. Here are my settings for scanning the standard 4x6 photos you get from Walgreens and such:
  Original: Photo
  Purpose: Custom Value 300dpi
  Scan Type: True Color
  Send to Application: None
  Scan Frame: Fixed Size, 4x6 Landscape (or Portrait, depending on whether the photo is horizontal or vertical)
  Save In: Wherever you want
  Filename: Whatever you want. It will use the same name each time, and append a three-digit number starting with the second scan. "Scanned Photo 001," for example. So don't scan more than 1,000 photos. :-)
  File Format: TIFF. This gives you an uncompressed scan. You can always compress to JPEG later.


• Without closing MSC, press the Scan button on the scanner (the left-most one). MSC will scan the photo, save it in the location you selected, and promptly crash.


• Hit OK to close the crash notification window, then launch MSC again.


• While MSC is loading, put another photo on the scanner. By the time you've taken the old one off and put the new one on, MSC will be loaded.


• Hit Scan again, rinse, and repeat.

I bet this procedure would work with other Microtek scanners.