Scan going straight to print, and not creating PDF

[David Bicket]

I have Nitro Pro 13.16.2.300, but am having problems with scanning.  I tried to correct another problem (that it was trying to open Powerpoint unexpectedly) so turned off all Office options.  The result is that scanning from within Nitro Pro (Home/PFD/From Scanner) now goes directly to print, without creating a PDF.  Why is this happening, and how can I correct it?

[Allain Umailin]

Hello @David Bicket,

Thank you for reaching out to us through our Community Forums!

Let us try some troubleshooting by referring to these steps:

1. Clear the content of the directory under C:\users\your_username\Appdata\local\temp. For whatever reason, not all temp files automatically remove themselves and is NOT usually caused by Nitro Pro files. Kindly note Appdata folder is hidden and to unhide it, please refer to this article https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/cant-see-the-appdata-folder/ 

2. Download and run our Clean Up utility to uninstall your Nitro Pro:  http://install.nitropdf.com/professional_13263505/install-cleanup/install-cleanup.zip

NOTE: This clean-up tool will erase any existing signature files within Nitro so please save them to another location before using the clean-up tool in order to keep them. Please see this link for backing up custom stamps/signatures: https://kb.gonitro.com/knowledgebase#/search/stamps/000004307 

3. After rebooting, go to the following locations/paths and delete the Nitro folders from previous installations:
-C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Local\Nitro
-C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\LocalLow\Nitro
-C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Roaming\Nitro
-C:\Program Files\Nitro
-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Nitro
-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Nitro

*VERY IMPORTANT* Adjusting anything in the Windows registry can cause problems. Care should be taken when working in there by saving a backup before making any change. Please refer to this article: https://support.microsoft.com/en-ph/help/322756/how-to-back-up-and-restore-the-registry-in-windows

4. Clear all your downloads folder or delete all downloaded Nitro installers. This step is important because we noticed that if you are saving all the installers and you download them in the same folder (like the downloads folder), the EXE can pick up any MSI installer in that folder and you may pick-up one of the older builds instead of the newly downloaded package.

5. Download and install Nitro Pro 13.26 using below offline installers:

x32 http://install.nitropdf.com/professional_13263505/en/retail/nitro_pro13_ba_x86.msi
x64 http://install.nitropdf.com/professional_13263505/en/retail/nitro_pro13_ba_x64.msi

If you are not sure which to pick, this will help: https://kb.gonitro.com/knowledgebase#/search/64/000003790 

6. After installation, you can activate by opening Nitro Pro, clicking on the Help tab > About Nitro Pro > Activate by entering your serial number
 
Thank you very much in advance and I am looking forward to hearing back from you. 

[David Bicket]

Hi Allain, thank you for your detailed instructions.  They have solved my immediate problem, namely my scans now produce PDFs rather than going straight to print.  However, my original problem (which was behind my running into that problem) still exists, namely the scanned PDFs are scrambled and unusable.

Re your instructions, they were easy to follow.  Just two comments: [1] I did not find anything to delete from your step (3) either in directories or in the registry; [2] I did find two full Nitro installers still located in C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Downloaded Installations\, which I deleted.

Re my original (and remaining) problem, I have a screenshot of the scanning preview window, and also the resulting scrambled PDF, but cannot attach them using the control below ('Insert image from URL') because it will not accept a OneDrive URL.  Can you offer me any advice about the cause and how I can solve it?  Re the images, can you suggest how I can get them to you?

Thanks again

[Allain Umailin]

Hello @David Bicket,

Thank you for your feedback and for letting me know the steps above helped in fixing the issue you initially reported.

In line with the scrambled/unusable scanned PDF files, could you please provide the following information?:

-What is the exact make/model of your scanner? Does it have the latest software/driver installed? In connection with the driver, is it a PCL or PostScript by any chance?

-Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling your scanner's software/driver? Did it help?

For the screenshot of the issue, you may send via private message by hovering your mouse on top of my name 'AllainU' and select 'Message'.

Lastly, I would love to have a copy of the PDF file so I can perform some tests on my end.

Thank you very much in advance and I am looking forward to hearing back from you. 

[David Bicket]

Hi Allain,

After your last message, I've had success after quite a bit more testing on my side.  There is just one more outstanding question.

The issue for me appears to have been the Twain driver for my Brother MFC-6490CW LAN scanner.  When I use the WIA driver it works ok.  [My previous cumbersome workaround was to scan to PDF from Photoshop, but that uses only the WIA driver and does not offer the option of a Twain driver.]  I've also tried Nitro successfully with my Epson V700 Photo scanner (attached via USB, not LAN) which offers two different interfaces, one of which is explicitily WIA, and other other of which is not labelled but which brings up the 'native' Epson scanning interface.

So, thanks to your guidance I have now resolved my main problem and a subsequent problem caused by my trying to solve that problem myself.  Now, there is only one real issue outstanding, which is not a showstopper.  This is the fact that Nitro tries to open PowerPoint exactly when the scanned PDF image is first opened in Nitro. In doing this, it produces the error message: "Microsoft PowerPoint    There's not enough memory or system resource to start PowerPoint".  Do you have any idea why this is happening?  I certainly never intended to link Nitro to PowerPoint in any way.  This happened before you started helping me, and is still happening now after the other problems have been solved.

There is one further minor irksome detail, in case you are able to advise about it.  Typically, I do not want OCR on my scans, so I chose the scanning option which says 'Do not use OCR'.  Nonetheless, when that scanned image is first opened in Nitro, a large message is popped up saying 'Edit Scanned Documents   Make your scanned document editable by using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) first.', together with a button labelled 'Use OCR'.  Can I prevent this annoying pop-up message?

Thank you again for your help.

 

Edited October 6, 2020 by David Bicket
Typo - 'now' should be 'not'

[Allain Umailin]

Hello @David Bicket,

Thanks for letting me know you were able to fix the scanning issue when using WIA driver.

In line with turning off the OCR pop-up message, yes you can turn this option off. To do so, open up Nitro Pro and go to, "File > Preferences > Notifications" and uncheck the option, "Show In-Product Messages". This will prevent the OCR message from popping up.

In connection with Nitro trying to open PowerPoint when opening scanned PDF files, have you tried checking if Nitro Pro is the default PDF viewer on your system by referring to these steps?

1. Find a PDF file and Right Click then go to Open With then "Choose Another App".
2. Navigate or scroll to the program you want to use to open your PDF file and then select this program. For this instance, choose Nitro Pro 10.
3. Check the box "Always use this app to open .pdf files' then click OK.

Thank you for choosing Nitro and I hope this helps.

Edited October 16, 2020 by AllainU

[David Bicket]

Hi Allain,

Thank you for your latest feedback, and for the helpful advice.  I'm sorry it has taken me so long to reply, but taxes and other uncontrollables have intervened.  Unchecking the option "Show In-Product Messages" successfully eliminated that irritating OCR message from constantly popping up.

I have not been able to prevent the simultaneous attempt to open PowerPoint whenever a newly scanned image is automatically opened in Nitro Pro.  Nitro Pro is definitely the default app for PDF extensions; and furthermore in reviewing all extension assigments for PowerPoint there are none related to PDFs.  So it must be something internal within Nitro Pro, but I give up trying to figure it out.  I'll just continue to click and close the PowerPoint error message.  But it does take a bit of the shine off of Nitro Pro's performance.

Incidentally, I experienced a new 'feature' issue the past few days, when I was completing the US Foreign Bank Account PDF form.  It requires Adobe Reader, and refuses to run in Nitro Pro.  Furthermore, the completed form can be printed from Adobe Reader, but if I try to print it from Nitro Pro, all of the completed fields show as empty.  It's an unusual issue, and I am not asking for a solution in Nitro since it is such a rare requirement for me.  But it is interesting to note that some PDF documents such as this FBAR cannot be printed successfully by Nitro Pro.

Thank you again for the many helpful hints you have given me on these multiple issues.