Place your document face down on the glass surface of your scanner. If you're using an all-in-one printer-fax-scanner with a feeding mechanism, you will feed the document the same way you would send a fax. Check the machine's documentation to confirm or do a test run to determine the correct orientation of the document for scanning.
Load the software program that came with your scanner. In some cases, the program may load automatically when you place a document on the glass.
Adjust your scanner settings as needed from your scanner software program. For instance, you can change the output shade from grayscale to full-color. You can also set the document to scan darker or lighter on most models. On some models you may have to change the settings from the device instead of the program on your computer.
Click the button to "Scan" or "Scan to" button from your device. On some models you can choose to scan it as a specific image format (such as GIF or TIF). Some devices allow you to preview the scan before you complete the process. Wait for the scanning process to complete, which could take a few minutes.
View the document in the scanning software program on your computer. Edit or crop the document as you see fit from the scanner program and then save it as an image (such as TIF, JPG, GIF, PDF) file.