Before TWAIN, each application would have to have code specific to each scanner it supported, otherwise they could not be used together. Now the TWAIN shall meet (hence the name).
The TWAIN support in PSAlter does not mean that you can use a scanner with PSAlter. It is the other way round: PSAlter can be made to look like a scanner to other applications. This may seem odd, but it is a convenient way of bringing PostScript images into applications which either do not support PostScript directly, or which are required to print to a non-PostScript printer.
An application which supports TWAIN scanners expect to find one or more TWAIN sources installed. A TWAIN source is actually a program, normally supplied by a scanner manufacturer. (This will be a file whose name ends .ds, and will normally be located in a subdirectory of c:\windows\twain.) PSAlter installs its own TWAIN source, pstwain.ds, and this will be immediately accessible to TWAIN applications.
First you will have to find out if your applications do support TWAIN. If they do, they will probably have a File | Acquire menu item (or Scan, or something similar), and a Select Source (or Select Scanner) menu item. If in doubt, consult your documentation, supplier, or manufacturer.
If you have an application which supports TWAIN, you must first use the Select Source item in that application. That will give you a list of installed sources, of which ‘PSAlter PostScript Acquire’ will be one. This need only be done once (unless you change sources later).
Then use Acquire (or Scan, or whatever). The PSAlter TWAIN source will display a dialog box allowing you to open a PostScript file.
You can choose between image models: black and white, 256 greys, 256 colours, and 24-bit colour. If the application is not prepared to accept a particular image model, you will not be able to select it. You can also choose the resolution (dots per inch) to be used.
When you click OK, PSAlter will proceed exactly as for a translation session (with a percentage bar, then finally a preview of the image).
You can optionally drag the mouse over the image to select just a part of it, then click OK again; the image will be passed back to the original application. In some cases the PSAlter source stays open, and can be used for another PostScript file, or you can click Cancel to exit. The application now has a bitmap from the PostScript file, and will handle it according to its own procedures.
It will probably be necessary to choose an image model of black and white and a resolution of 200 dpi, since that is what most fax programs require. When you see the preview of the image, the option Bounding box will be selected. This asks PSAlter to trim off all of the white space surrounding the page. For faxing, you will probably want to choose the Whole page option to preserve the margins.
The current PSAlter/TWAIN interface does not support multi-page documents.
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