VueScan – getting an old scanner to work on Mavericks

I had an old Canon USB scanner sitting in my home office and had wondered how to get it working with my iMac running Mavericks. I also have an ancient parallel port Canon scanner and an elderly Fujitsu ScanSnap on an old WinXP Gateway PC. Whenever I wanted to scan something, I had to fire up the old XP box. There had to be a better way! I googled around a bit, and stumbled across VueScan. I downloaded the code (in demo mode, it puts a watermark on the output, but you can use all the features) and was amazed that it very efficiently drove the old Canon. At $40 for a basic license (cross platform, PC, Mac, Linux, and up to 4 systems), it was more than I was hoping to pay, but it got me a scanner with a lot of software functionality for less than buying new hardware. Plus, it appeals to my “green” side, trying to keep old electronics functional without sending them to the landfill. I knew I’d kept that old scanner around for a reason. I’m just beginning to play with the functionality of the software, it’s very full-featured. If you find yourself trying to bring an old scanner to life, or if you are just unsatisfied with the software that came with your scanner, check out VueScan.

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