Hi, I recently bought an Epson Ecotank ET-4850. Pretty happy actually with the printer itself, scanning quality is also quite good. However - it has a fatal flaw that i was not aware of.
I had an Epson WF-3620 that was able to scan to a folder, where Paperless-NGX then could do it’s magic. The ET-4850 doesn’t support scanning to a folder. It does support WSD, but that’s not really convenient…
Is there a way to do all this with a Raspberry Pi or another device that’s connected to the MFD?
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I selfhost ScanservJS, uses sane under the hood and provides a nice web URL for scans. You can store the scans on a network or shared folder for paperless NGX.
I just wish something similar existed for printing as well…
Paperless is so good
Didn’t know that exists, that’s pretty neat! However, not really what i’m looking for in this case, because i don’t want to use a device other than the printer itself. With scan to folder, you just set the MFP to scan something to an FTP, SMB or whatever folder. The ET-4850 unfortunately doesn’t support that, so i’m looking for an alternative…i could just run a Windows VM on my Proxmox and let that do the “Scan-To” stuff, but that’s pretty resource intensive… But the more i look in to it, it seems there is no solution (except a Windows VM) for this, as SANE only “speaks to the MFP” and the MFP can’t talk to SANE via WSD…
I don’t get you.
The scanner does not support scan to folder. Ok, so there is no other option than using another device to scan for you. Scanservjs fix that for you. Run it in a container of you don’t want it on bare metal, its light and doesn’t require resources unless you scan.
Sane is just Linux scanner engine, any Linux distro can install it easily.
I mean, why on earth use a windows VM??? Use a very simple Linux one without any GUI just install sane+ScanservJS and you are in business. Zero overhead.
If you don’t mind using your phone then this is how mine is setup.
I use Microsoft Lens on the phone to make the scans. The folder that Microsoft Lens outputs to is synced to the Paperless consume folder with Syncthing. So basically, all the scans that I take with Microsoft Lens go right into Paperless automatically.
Even though I also have a printer/scanner, I find myself using my phone more often for convenience even if it does suffer some quality.
what do you mean?
I have an epson ecotank and use it on archlinux with the epson scan software via usb. I select a dir and it puts the scan result there.
Scan to folder usually doesnt involve a PC at all. The scanner saves the file on a network share via NFS or smb
ooh I didn’t know that, thanks
For that, the PC has to be on. I’m using that as well, but that’s not really what i want it to do in this case. For example…i get a an invoice in the mail, i open the mail and the Epson is in the hallway downstairs, right next to the main door. I put an ASN/Barcode on the original document concerning the user paperpless should file that document under, scan the document and put it in the loose filing bin…etc. Basically, i do not want to have to use the PC.
What DOES the new scanner do with its scan output, then?
Maybe you could use Epson connect, have it automatically scan to a registered email, then use a script to check that email and dump the files in a folder.
That’s none encrypted and i don’t really want to push some sensitive invoice data unencrypted to somewhere else…
Do you mean you want to put the resulting image files into a particular folder on your computer?
I would have thought anything to do with folders and stuff is up to your scanning software, not the scanning device.
