Scan to Chromebook

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A question that I've seen raised regarding the Chromebook is "can I scan documents to my Chromebook?"  Unfortunately, it isn't possible to plug your TWAIN scanner or all-in-one printer directly into your Chromebook because Chrome OS doesn't provide any printer or scanner drivers. However, all is not lost!

Many all-in-one printers that connect to a network with wifi have a web interface that can be accessed from the Chromebook. My HP Officejet 6500A Plus all-in-one printer has an embedded web server that you access by entering the IP address for the printer on my home network. In my case, the IP address is 10.0.1.3

The screen at right is what I see on my Chromebook browser when I get to the webscan page.  Simply place the document you want to scan on the scanner, choose whether you want to scan the document as JPEG or PDF, the page size, and other settings.  Then choose "start scan" button.  When the scan is done, right click on the preview image and either select "save as" to save the scanned document to local storage on the Chromebook.  Once saved to local storage, you can upload the document to Google Drive or Dropbox.  If you'd prefer, you can right click on the preview image and choose "print".  Then select "cloud print" and choose "Google Drive" as the cloud printer. It will save the document as a PDF in your Google Drive.

Another option is to scan the document to an SD card if your all-in-one printer has an SD card slot and a "scan to card" option.

Of course, an other option is to take a picture of the item and transfer it to your Chromebook by removing the SD card from the camera and inserting it into the Chromebook or by connecting the camera to the Chromebook via USB cable.

So, it is possible to scan documents to a Chromebook.  It just takes a little creativity.