Photo Album Import / Image File Import

Overview

  • The photo album import can be used to capture barcodes contained in previously taken photos or saved images (e.g. from emails or the browser).
  • This function is accessible via the button with the file box icon (between gear icon and lamp control) in the upper left corner.
  • When tapped, a pop-up window appears below it and inside you will find the menu item "Photo Album Import".
  • On macOS, this function is called "image file import". This allows image files to be loaded from the hard drive.
  • The import process will be explained in further detail below.

Open Image

  • After starting the photo album import, a welcome window is displayed. By tapping the large icon in the center of the screen labeled "Open Image From Album", the first image can be loaded.
  • Subsequently, loading another image is possible by tapping the "Open Image" button in the lower left corner.
  • If an image has already been loaded before, and you wish to run it again with other options, a pop-up also offers the selection "Previous Image (Original)" for cropping the original image again and "Current Image (Cropped)" if the image has already been cropped.

Import Options

Scan Precision
  • Barcode recognition is a computationally intensive process and can take a while under certain circumstances (especially on older devices). Therefore, to minimize the waiting, an optimized method is used. This allows for very fast recognition of most barcodes.
  • If an image contains very small barcodes or many barcodes at once, this method may not be sufficient to find all elements at the first attempt. By increasing the scanning precision, the image will be searched more thoroughly, but this may also take more time.
Cropping Dialog
  • If an image contains several barcodes, but there is only interest in certain elements, the search can be restricted to this area by cropping the image beforehand. At the same time, recognition may be accelerated (especially with higher scanning precision) when cropping areas of the image which do not contain relevant content.

Selecting Elements

  • After completing the recognition process, the selected image will be displayed in the import window. All recognized Barcodes are highlighted in green and marked with a white checkmark.
  • Tapping one of the green areas selects or deselects the underlying barcode for later import. When deselecting an item, the color of the area changes to red and the checkmark disappears.
  • Each recognized barcode also has a button with an "eye" icon. When tapped, further details regarding the barcode's content will be displayed.
  • In addition, the "Show List" button may be used to display all recognized barcodes more conveniently as a list.
  • In list view, the content of every barcode is displayed in a separate line. By tapping a list entry, further details will be presented. The import selection can be altered by tapping the "Edit" button (top right corner).

Execute Import

  • The process can be completed by selecting the "Import" button at the top right of the image view.
  • All selected elements will then be inserted at the top of the scan history and can then be used in the same way as barcodes that have been captured by the camera.
  • If the image contains multiple identical barcodes or barcodes with the same content and all of them are selected, these will also appear multiple times in the history.
  • The subsequent confirmation dialog offers a "Finish" button to close the photo album import directly. If you wish to process more images, you may select the "Continue" option.

Notes

  • Certain barcode types (linear barcodes) have only one dimension (height or width). Therefore, they may be recognized multiple times if they are stretched or interrupted. In this case, you can manually deselect duplicates before importing.
  • Most barcode types have an error correction mechanism so that partial or truncated barcodes can be recognized as corrupted and be ignored. Sometimes in extreme cases, this may not work, especially with linear barcodes that may still contain readable information even if partially recognized. In this situation, you can manually deselect false detections (e.g. in the border area).