Elevated Software Development has updated fScanX (http://www.elevated-dev.com/Products/fScanX/), their scanning solution for Mac OS X, to version 1.7. It adds support for Fujitsu fi-5950C & fi-6800 production-level scanners. This provides the ability to scan single or double-sided documents in color, grayscale or monochrome at up to 135 pages per minute.

fScanX was developed specifically to provide native Mac OS X support for high-speed Fujitsu scanners. Rather than requiring the application to launch in order to perform scanning, fScanX’s command-line utility gives developers the ability to control the user interface completely. This opens up a host of possibilities for prepress operators, developers and graphic designers alike to build custom workflows involving scanning, according to Scott Ribe, founder of Elevated Software Development.

Additionally, fScanX ships with an Automator action that enables creation of scanning workflows without scripting. fScanX also enables a host of alternative automation options. It takes only three lines of script code in FileMaker to scan a document, with similar setups available in 4D, Ribe says.

And it’s just as easy to scan from AppleScript, shell scripts, Ruby, Python, and more, he adds. Simple FileMaker and AppleScript Studio examples are included. As more extensive Objective-C examples, the sources of the standalone scanning application and Automator action are also included.

fScan X 1.7 requires Mac OS X 10.4 or higher. It’s licensed on a per-scanner basis, US$149 to $699, depending on the model.