Scanner only scans in photo mode

Have you tried contacting the manufacturer? Could be a defective unit. If it's new enough, they may even replace it for free or direct you where it can be repaired.

Scanner only scans in photo mode
No, I didn't contact Epson, because it seemed to me that A2K might be the first place to start. Sending the unit back to the mfr would be hideously expensive, because of its weight, and God only knows how long it would take to get a response.

I have now found that the copy utility must be accessed via Start>Programs>Epson Creativity Suite>Copy Utility, and everything goes ok until the actual copying; then the popup window simply keeps showing progress but getting nowhere, just repetiously going whine/quiet, whine/quiet, and indicating - but not making - progress.

Quite often a popup says that the scanner connection cannot be found, then sometimes nothing happens, but sometimes when I close that popup the scanner window appears and everything seems to function corrctly - until the printing problem. I assume that the problem doesn't lie with the printer, since the scanner recognizes it.

While there may be someone here that can help, I would still suggest calling the manufacturer. If this thing is new and under warrenty, you will likely be reimbursed the shipping costs if it has to back to them for repairs. This is what happened to me when my stereo proved to be malfunctioning out of the box. It cost over $20 to ship it to them, but they sent me a check and a new unit. If they won't refund the shipping costs, ask them if they can suggest a local repair shop or another way to get it fixed and ask for reimbursement for that.
If you don't want to call them, just log onto their website at http://www.epson.com, pick your location, then choose the "contact us" link at the bottom of the page. It will take a bit longer to get a response than a phone call, but you could also spend some time browsing their site to see if there is any information there you can use.

Scanner only scans in photo mode
"Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition or Professional, Me, 98SE, or 2000 Professional

(Operating systems upgraded from Windows 95 are not supported by the software.)

The USB interface must be used in full speed mode. "

The above are from Epson FAQs and refer to systems using ISB 1.1. Can someone tell me what is meant by "full speed mode"?

BTW, I much prefer to try sorting problems on my own (i.e. with A2K or mfr's website help) to returning a product to the mfr. It's quicker, as a rule.

What are you trying to do ?
A scanner scans images as graphics files.
That's all they're capable of doing.

You can get software for things like Optical Character Recognition that will take the scanned image and then turn it into a page of proper text for you that you can edit etc...
Most scanners come with some sort of OCR software that will do that transparently.

Scanner only scans in photo mode
I want to be able to scan printed documents and copy them to the printer - nothing fancy.

I have now been able to scan and copy a document, although the scanning alone takes nearly 3 minutes which is ridiculous.

My printer has two paper trays - one I keep for envelopes only, but this is the one to which the scanner has decided to direct its copy efforts. This is a nuisance, but can be lived with.

The problem I asked about in the first place was that all scanning was done into picture form, exactly as if I had used a digital camera and uploaded the result to the computer. I finally found out that the approach to document scanning has two options - one is to press the Print button on the front of the scanner, but this produces no result. The other is the Start>Epson Creativity Suite>Copy Utility that I mentioned above.

I assume that since this is a photo scanner, plain document copying is taking a back seat to photo scanning. However, my old Epson Perfection Photo scanner didn't relegate documents to second place, and I'm not happy about this.

I've emailed Epson, and hope to hear from them by Tuesday.

Ahhhh. I see.
So you want to use it like a photocopier and just stuff your document on the scanner, close the lid, press the button and within a short time it should pop out of the printer ?

Are you sure you have the little utility for accessing the scanner buttons running all the time ?
It should appear in the system tray near the clock.
My HP scanner buttons don't work unless this little application is running all the time.

The specifics of how to go about it will vary from scanner to scanner, but essentially, to copy text as a text file, you have to use a "copy to application" configuration on the scanner, have Optical Character Recognition software installed, select the scanner's OCR copy mode, and set the scanner to copy directly to a text editor, such as Word. Once the scan has been saved as a document, you can edit it if desired, and then print it. There also should be a setting to copy a relatively low resolution b&w or grayscale original directly to the printer, which should speed things up quite a bit; if you don't need the high resolution and deep color required for photos, you don't need to have the scanner capture and transfer them.

Scanner only scans in photo mode
Somehow I don't seem to have made myself clear. I'm not looking for scan-to-application at the moment, simply to use my scanner and my printer in tandem as a copier. Put the document in the scanner, it scans, it copies to the printer, the printer spits out a copy.

I haven't begun to explore all the facets of this scanner, and have no idea how good it will be at OCR. What I needed - and hoped I had bought - is a scanner to use for copying to the printer, and to get my photos onto my computer.

But dammit, three minutes to scan a plain text document!

To make the buttons work as you expect them to work you need the little system tray application running.
Otherwise the PC get's a message from a button and doesn't know what to do with it so it gets ignored.
Check your scanner software.

Scans will take longer if you have it set at a high resolution.
And doubly so if you're only using USB 1 which I'm pretty sure you are judging by your other thread.

Scanner only scans in photo mode
Heliotrope - yes it's USB 1. My old scanner worked much faster, but I assi,e it was meant for USB 1 - I don't think there was anything else when I got the scanner. So you can see it was an old one, and owed me nothing.

I think I got spoiled!

Anyway, I'm going to check the software; maybe it will help.

Scanner only scans in photo mode
No, nothng shows up in the systems tray. Perhaps that's the problem.

I'll try running the CD.