ScanMole

What ScanMole is

ScanMole is a free Linux tool for turning office and archival paperwork into searchable PDFs. It provides a command-line scanning engine and a GTK4/libadwaita desktop interface. Scanning features include duplex batch jobs, blank-page removal, OCR, automatic page sizing, deskewing, and PDF/A output by default. It detects page sizes, crops pages, and can straighten skewed scans. It works with scanners supported by SANE, including driverless eSCL devices through sane-airscan; the project lists tested devices from Brother, Canon, Epson, and ScanSnap. The CLI offers filename templates, defined exit codes, and a versioned JSON event protocol for frontends or integrations. The documented toolchain includes SANE, img2pdf, ocrmypdf, and Tesseract. Supported installation is documented for Debian 13 or later and Ubuntu 24.04 or later, with Fedora instructions; Python 3.12 or later is required. The CLI can be installed on its own for server or scripting use, while the GUI is intended for desktop use. The project targets everyday paperwork rather than photo or image scanning. On the tested ScanSnap iX100, duplex requests scan only the front side and produce a warning.