Problems with Brother Scanners

A lot of users have trouble with Brother scanners – especially the multifunction scanners with document feeders. The most common problem is that only the first or last page actually comes in after the scan.

The Problem

The trouble is that Brother doesn't normally provide TWAIN drivers for its scanners, only WIA drivers. WIA was an early attempt by Microsoft to replace TWAIN. While WIA works well for cameras and camcorders, it's very poorly implemented for scanning.

Whenever Windows only finds a WIA driver for a scanner, it will auto-generate a TWAIN driver as well. These show up in the list of scanners as "WIA-device name". These are almost always problematic and should be avoided.

The Solution

The best solution is to install an actual TWAIN driver for your scanner. Sometimes you can find these right on your machine. Try going to the Windows "Start" menu > "All Programs" > "Brother" and look for an option to install the TWAIN driver. Alternatively, go to the Brother website and see if there's one to download.

If you can't get a TWAIN driver from Brother, you'll be forced to use the "WIA-" version of the driver. These drivers seem to work best if you always show the native scanning dialog. Do this:

• Go to the FileCenter "Tools" menu > "Settings" > "Scan Profiles"
• Set any options you want to have as defaults
• Select the option called "Show Scanner Dialog"
• Click "OK"

Now when you scan, Brother's own interface will pop up. This will give you the most trouble-free results.