scanning - files too large!

[VJmotion]

I have a mac running OSX 10.8.2 and an HP laserjet Pro 300 color MFP m375nw.  I scan using HP Scan v4.0.50.

I had a 14 page document I needed to email, so I scanned it via the default 300ppi.  gray scale.  file size was 27.8MB.

How could that be?

So I then took a USB drive and scanned via the all-in-one directly to the thumb drive with the same settings.  I plugged the thumb drive into my mac and found the same document to be 9.5 MB.  So it would seem that something is wrong with HP Scan.

However, then I took just the first page of the document and scanned it via HP Scan and got a file size of 350kb.  Next I used the Mac built in scan software by going to:  system prefs>print&scan>scan tab>open scanner.  And using the same settings scanned the first page only and got a file size of 975kb.

So now I really don't know what's up.  It seems there's so sort of problem that involves both the mac/HP software that produces very large scan files.  I don't know who to call to trouble shoot it but hope it is resolved soon.  In the mean time, it seems the best work around is to scan directly to USB drive.

[kvnstnkr]

Haven't tried scanning to USB, but even if that works it is too much hassle. I want the product (my officejet pro 8600 plus) to work as advertised: push a couple buttons on the device to send a reasonably-sized usable pdf file to the computer. Not use some cumbersome workaround to do what the product should do straight out of the factory. I've been using the scan function in PDFill PDF Tools (a free download) for 95% of my scanning and it works very well. All I can say is I'm never buying an HP scanner again. The file sizes with the built-in HP scan software render the scanning function virtually useless. The fact that other people can create software that works with the same hardware without even really trying (PDFill wasn't created specifically for an HP scanner, for example) shows me that HP simply doesnt care about its customers once they've got my money. HP won't fix the issue and hasn't bothered to offer any kind of explanation. It just continues to sell the problem to other unsuspecting consumers.

Sorry for the rant; it is offered in the hopes that an HP employee someday reads it and realizes that this issue (which should be easily fixed!!!!!) is resulting in some significantly dissatisfied customers.

[VJmotion]

I agree the product should work as intended... but at least the workaround did work and I got those important documents out in time.

The problem seems a bit more complicated than just blaming HP.  It seems to be some sort of combination between apple and HP.  And hence, the problem of who to talk to about it.

I hope they fix this soon as well.

[compuser1234]

Holy cow. You were totally right. The "save as" in Mac Preview with the Quartz feature was unbelievable. Turned my HP scanned PDF of 36 MB to 900 KB.

Thanks for the tip.

HP - you should really work on a built-in compression option.

[NavyCapeCanavrl]

Clean the glass!  (Seriously...)

A user's scans were showing a vertical line going down the PDF, suggesting dirt on the glass, so I cleaned the glass. Solved that problem.

But his 32-page scans also were never showing up in email, so I figured he needed to break it up to reduce the attachment size (due to attachment size limits in our email system).

Before cleaning the glass, the PDF file size for just 10 pages was 6MB.

After cleaning the glass, the PDF file size for the same 10 pages was 1MB. His 32-page scan then arrived in email just fine at under 4MB.

Not exactly scientific, I know, but ....