Is It Possible Redirect User To Launch Scanner Application?

I'm writing an application to show the uploaded documents using python3-django-1.8.1. We also want to allow user to scan a document. As you know that, there is a print dialog in j

Solution 1:

I am not too familiar with a image scanning feature, but I had faced a similar issue with a barcode scanner.

You cannot actually expect something similar to printing, as printing is a browser-enabled feature whereas scanning is something a typical browser does not do.

Moreover, JS has no capability of accessing peripherals directly. What would happen if this page would be browsed by a mobile? (A scan from the camera would be fantastic but never heard of anything like it).

Having said that, there is a scanner.js SDK:

scanner.js enables any web page to acquire images from scanners using JavaScript in most desktop browsers like IE, Chrome, Firefox and more. In most cases, software install is not required and the user can enjoy a great scanning experience.

Also there is a Twain SDK:

Dynamic Web TWAIN is a TWAIN-based scanning SDK software specifically designed for web applications.

These are supposingly dealing with your issue but I haven't used them. Scanner.js demo is not even working now on my Ubuntu machine. My guess is that they are not entirely JS-based anyway (com objects and stuff).

Other things to do is to have a small Firefox plugin developed if your case is specific (such as Intranet) so to control the users' browsers.

Last, but not least, another option would be to develop and provide a small desktop app to handle scanning and uploading.

If there is any other recommendation I would love to see it.