Looking to scan 8.5 x 14 (legal) paper documents into 8.5 x 11 paper. I
have Canon's Scan & Stitch, but the halves of each end of the 8.5 x 14
scan don't match up. The top half (1st scan) is offset from the bottom
half (2nd scan). What I get after scan and stitch looks like:

**********
**********
********** (1st scan, top of legal doc)
********** <--.
********** <--|__ overlap (same content)
********** <--|
********** <--'
********** (2nd scan, bottom of legal doc)
**********
**********

Canon's tool does not align top with bottom. Plus it overlaps
(duplicates) some content from top into bottom. Looking for a free tool
that will scan, and stitch the top and bottom of a legal-sized document
with the top and bottom aligned with each other.

I did find Hugin (https://hugin.sourceforge.io/), but that seems
oriented to stitching together multiple pics into a panoramic pic. With
text only, the alignment would be on the overlapping text between the 2
scans of the top and bottom of the legal-sized page.

Some users noted Arcsoft's Scan-n-Stitch, but it's not free (but maybe
for the Deluxe edition), and looks like Arcsoft dropped it years ago. Apparently this is bundled with Epson printers, but likely a Lite
version that is free.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 1/15/26 4:13 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

Looking to scan 8.5 x 14 (legal) paper documents into 8.5 x 11 paper. I
have Canon's Scan & Stitch, but the halves of each end of the 8.5 x 14
scan don't match up. The top half (1st scan) is offset from the bottom
half (2nd scan). What I get after scan and stitch looks like:

**********
**********
********** (1st scan, top of legal doc)
********** <--.
********** <--|__ overlap (same content)
********** <--|
********** <--'
********** (2nd scan, bottom of legal doc)
**********
**********

Canon's tool does not align top with bottom. Plus it overlaps
(duplicates) some content from top into bottom. Looking for a free tool
that will scan, and stitch the top and bottom of a legal-sized document
with the top and bottom aligned with each other.

I did find Hugin (https://hugin.sourceforge.io/), but that seems
oriented to stitching together multiple pics into a panoramic pic. With
text only, the alignment would be on the overlapping text between the 2
scans of the top and bottom of the legal-sized page.

Some users noted Arcsoft's Scan-n-Stitch, but it's not free (but maybe
for the Deluxe edition), and looks like Arcsoft dropped it years ago. Apparently this is bundled with Epson printers, but likely a Lite
version that is free.

How many are you doing?
If it were me, and less than 10 pages, rather than wasting time trying to find an
automation, I'd just pull the pages into photoshop or gimp and cut and shift the pages to
align.

That would get the picture properly into 8.5x14, but then you'd probably just scale the
picture down to 11" tall. The width would adjust to 6.677" so you'd wind up with a
smaller image but it would fit on 11" fine.

--
Linux Mint 22.3, Mozilla Thunderbird 140.6.0esr, Mozilla Firefox 146.0.1
Alan K.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 01/15/2026 4:13 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

Looking to scan 8.5 x 14 (legal) paper documents into 8.5 x 11 paper. I
have Canon's Scan & Stitch, but the halves of each end of the 8.5 x 14
scan don't match up. The top half (1st scan) is offset from the bottom
half (2nd scan). What I get after scan and stitch looks like:

**********
**********
********** (1st scan, top of legal doc)
********** <--.
********** <--|__ overlap (same content)
********** <--|
********** <--'
********** (2nd scan, bottom of legal doc)
**********
**********

Canon's tool does not align top with bottom. Plus it overlaps
(duplicates) some content from top into bottom. Looking for a free tool
that will scan, and stitch the top and bottom of a legal-sized document
with the top and bottom aligned with each other.

I did find Hugin (https://hugin.sourceforge.io/), but that seems
oriented to stitching together multiple pics into a panoramic pic. With
text only, the alignment would be on the overlapping text between the 2
scans of the top and bottom of the legal-sized page.

Some users noted Arcsoft's Scan-n-Stitch, but it's not free (but maybe
for the Deluxe edition), and looks like Arcsoft dropped it years ago. Apparently this is bundled with Epson printers, but likely a Lite
version that is free.

When I have that situation, I use Irfanview. You can join images
either at the top of the images or on the side. Older version of
Irfanview called this the panorama. current version calls it Merging images.

I use it for cutting images from books and newspapers. With Irfanview I
can then add source information to the images, and then save it as a PDF
file which I find easier to maneuver around in than a JPG.




--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 01/15/2026 6:08 PM, knuttle wrote:

On 01/15/2026 4:13 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

Looking to scan 8.5 x 14 (legal) paper documents into 8.5 x 11 paper.ÿ I
have Canon's Scan & Stitch, but the halves of each end of the 8.5 x 14
scan don't match up.ÿ The top half (1st scan) is offset from the bottom
half (2nd scan).ÿ What I get after scan and stitch looks like:

ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ **********
ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ **********
ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ **********ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ (1st scan, top of legal doc)
ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ ********** <--.
ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ ********** <--|__ overlap (same content)
ÿÿÿ **********ÿÿÿÿÿ <--|
ÿÿÿ **********ÿÿÿÿÿ <--'
ÿÿÿ **********ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ (2nd scan, bottom of legal doc)
ÿÿÿ **********
ÿÿÿ **********

Canon's tool does not align top with bottom.ÿ Plus it overlaps
(duplicates) some content from top into bottom.ÿ Looking for a free tool
that will scan, and stitch the top and bottom of a legal-sized document
with the top and bottom aligned with each other.

I did find Hugin (https://hugin.sourceforge.io/), but that seems
oriented to stitching together multiple pics into a panoramic pic.ÿ With
text only, the alignment would be on the overlapping text between the 2
scans of the top and bottom of the legal-sized page.

Some users noted Arcsoft's Scan-n-Stitch, but it's not free (but maybe
for the Deluxe edition), and looks like Arcsoft dropped it years ago.
Apparently this is bundled with Epson printers, but likely a Lite
version that is free.

When I have that situation, I use Irfanview.ÿÿ You can join images
either at the top of the images or on the side.ÿ Older version of
Irfanview called this the panorama. current version calls it Merging
images.

I use it for cutting images from books and newspapers.ÿ With Irfanview I
can then add source information to the images, and then save it as a PDF file which I find easier to maneuver around in than a JPG.

After posting the above and reading the other post, if the original
poster wishes to join the pages together, I have also cut the sections
as and joined them to get the page size I want. I save them as JPGS

Once I get every thing I need I create a PDF file using the Irfanview's
Create Multipage PDF function.


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026/1/15 21:13:3, VanguardLH wrote:

Looking to scan 8.5 x 14 (legal) paper documents into 8.5 x 11 paper. I

Not sure what you mean by "into 8.5 x 11 paper"; I'll assume - as
everyone else has - that you mean you want one image containing the
whole document, which you will then scale for whatever use you want. And
that you only have an 11" scanner.

have Canon's Scan & Stitch, but the halves of each end of the 8.5 x 14
scan don't match up. The top half (1st scan) is offset from the bottom
half (2nd scan). What I get after scan and stitch looks like:

**********
**********
********** (1st scan, top of legal doc)
********** <--.
********** <--|__ overlap (same content)
********** <--|
********** <--'
********** (2nd scan, bottom of legal doc)
**********
**********

Do you mean it duplicates the overlap content? (Doesn't sound a very
good stitcher if so!)

Are you scanning two 11" long scans and then trying to merge them in it,
or only an 11" and a (say) 5"? Whichever you are doing, have you tried
the other - or won't the stitcher software work with one of those?

One thing to try, depending on how valuable the original is, would be to
stick two little squares of black tape at either side of the document if there's room, which might give the stitching software a better something
to latch on to. Or red tape, if it's doing a colour scan. (If it's
precious, maybe just two items held in place with paperclips, as long as
you can make sure they don't move relative to the document when you move
it to do the second scan.)

[]

As others have said, if you have only one or two such to do, then give
up looking (if you can't make the one you've got work), and just do two
scans, and join them with IrfanView; I've used it recently to do the
front and back of an LP sleeve. I presume many other image-manipulation softwares would do too - I just like IV.

As for other automatic software, I can't recommend anything. The most impressive such I've come across in the last few years was the driver
that came with a "mouse scanner" - which is an (only slightly) oversized
mouse with a scanner built into it; you scan any document of arbitrary
size (well it has a limit, but I think it's pretty big - A3 maybe?) by
just scribbling all over it with the mouse; it stitches the scans
together, rather amazingly. I have two of these (can't remember why) -
IIRR the model numbers contain 100 and 150; I got them on ebay or
similar, about 15 to 25 pounds I think. Fun to play with. (But the
software is the driver - I don't think you could use it to stitch images
from elsewhere.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDJohsjjhNo&t=183 shows how it works -
OK, he went awry with a perfectly featureless part of his scan, but
assuming your document has any dirt or creases it should be fine.

--
J. P. Gilliver

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

"Alan K." <alan@invalid.com> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

Looking to scan 8.5 x 14 (legal) paper documents into 8.5 x 11 paper. I
have Canon's Scan & Stitch, but the halves of each end of the 8.5 x 14
scan don't match up. The top half (1st scan) is offset from the bottom
half (2nd scan). What I get after scan and stitch looks like:

**********
**********
********** (1st scan, top of legal doc)
********** <--.
********** <--|__ overlap (same content)
********** <--|
********** <--'
********** (2nd scan, bottom of legal doc)
**********
**********

Canon's tool does not align top with bottom. Plus it overlaps
(duplicates) some content from top into bottom. Looking for a free tool
that will scan, and stitch the top and bottom of a legal-sized document
with the top and bottom aligned with each other.

I did find Hugin (https://hugin.sourceforge.io/), but that seems
oriented to stitching together multiple pics into a panoramic pic. With
text only, the alignment would be on the overlapping text between the 2
scans of the top and bottom of the legal-sized page.

Some users noted Arcsoft's Scan-n-Stitch, but it's not free (but maybe
for the Deluxe edition), and looks like Arcsoft dropped it years ago.
Apparently this is bundled with Epson printers, but likely a Lite
version that is free.

How many are you doing?

Around 240 pages, all legal size. Once scanned and stitched together
properly, I'd keep them as a PDF file.

I used to have a legal sized SCSI scanner a couple decades ago. Made
the choice back them to discard it. Took up a humungous amount of space
on my desk, slow, low res. I took a quick look, but doesn't seem any legal-sized scanners are sold now. If software could properly stitch
multiple scans together, I would need to even bother thinking about a legal-sized scanner.

Sorry, what I meant to ask is how to stitch together 14x8.5 legal size
paper to save in PDF files. I don't need to print them.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

knuttle <keith_nuttle@yahoo.com> wrote:

On 01/15/2026 4:13 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

Looking to scan 8.5 x 14 (legal) paper documents into 8.5 x 11 paper. I
have Canon's Scan & Stitch, but the halves of each end of the 8.5 x 14
scan don't match up. The top half (1st scan) is offset from the bottom
half (2nd scan). What I get after scan and stitch looks like:

**********
**********
********** (1st scan, top of legal doc)
********** <--.
********** <--|__ overlap (same content)
********** <--|
********** <--'
********** (2nd scan, bottom of legal doc)
**********
**********

Canon's tool does not align top with bottom. Plus it overlaps
(duplicates) some content from top into bottom. Looking for a free tool
that will scan, and stitch the top and bottom of a legal-sized document
with the top and bottom aligned with each other.

I did find Hugin (https://hugin.sourceforge.io/), but that seems
oriented to stitching together multiple pics into a panoramic pic. With
text only, the alignment would be on the overlapping text between the 2
scans of the top and bottom of the legal-sized page.

Some users noted Arcsoft's Scan-n-Stitch, but it's not free (but maybe
for the Deluxe edition), and looks like Arcsoft dropped it years ago.
Apparently this is bundled with Epson printers, but likely a Lite
version that is free.

When I have that situation, I use Irfanview. You can join images
either at the top of the images or on the side. Older version of
Irfanview called this the panorama. current version calls it Merging images.

I use it for cutting images from books and newspapers. With Irfanview I
can then add source information to the images, and then save it as a PDF file which I find easier to maneuver around in than a JPG.

For 250+ pages in a document? Very tedious. I don't need to print the stitched documents, just store them in a PDF. But scanning the
oversized pages means having to stitch them together. For a photo, or
two, yeah, I've see the panorama programs, but that would be a slow
solution.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

"J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

On 2026/1/15 21:13:3, VanguardLH wrote:

Looking to scan 8.5 x 14 (legal) paper documents into 8.5 x 11 paper. I

Not sure what you mean by "into 8.5 x 11 paper"; I'll assume - as
everyone else has - that you mean you want one image containing the
whole document, which you will then scale for whatever use you want. And
that you only have an 11" scanner.

have Canon's Scan & Stitch, but the halves of each end of the 8.5 x 14
scan don't match up. The top half (1st scan) is offset from the bottom
half (2nd scan). What I get after scan and stitch looks like:

**********
**********
********** (1st scan, top of legal doc)
********** <--.
********** <--|__ overlap (same content)
********** <--|
********** <--'
********** (2nd scan, bottom of legal doc)
**********
**********

Do you mean it duplicates the overlap content? (Doesn't sound a very
good stitcher if so!)

Are you scanning two 11" long scans and then trying to merge them in it,
or only an 11" and a (say) 5"? Whichever you are doing, have you tried
the other - or won't the stitcher software work with one of those?

One thing to try, depending on how valuable the original is, would be to stick two little squares of black tape at either side of the document if there's room, which might give the stitching software a better something
to latch on to. Or red tape, if it's doing a colour scan. (If it's
precious, maybe just two items held in place with paperclips, as long as
you can make sure they don't move relative to the document when you move
it to do the second scan.)

[]

As others have said, if you have only one or two such to do, then give
up looking (if you can't make the one you've got work), and just do two scans, and join them with IrfanView; I've used it recently to do the
front and back of an LP sleeve. I presume many other image-manipulation softwares would do too - I just like IV.

As for other automatic software, I can't recommend anything. The most impressive such I've come across in the last few years was the driver
that came with a "mouse scanner" - which is an (only slightly) oversized mouse with a scanner built into it; you scan any document of arbitrary
size (well it has a limit, but I think it's pretty big - A3 maybe?) by
just scribbling all over it with the mouse; it stitches the scans
together, rather amazingly. I have two of these (can't remember why) -
IIRR the model numbers contain 100 and 150; I got them on ebay or
similar, about 15 to 25 pounds I think. Fun to play with. (But the
software is the driver - I don't think you could use it to stitch images
from elsewhere.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDJohsjjhNo&t=183 shows how it works -
OK, he went awry with a perfectly featureless part of his scan, but
assuming your document has any dirt or creases it should be fine.

What I'd like to do is lay the 14" long paper against one edge (top) on
the scanner plate, scan it once, slide the paper to butt against the
other edge (bottom), and have the stitcher eliminate the duplicate text
in each scan, so I get a PDF that looks like the original legal page.

The legal-sized document has around 250 pages. The panorama photo
solutions would be very slow.

I have read where scanner/printers with an automatic document feeder can
figure out how to stitch 2 scans of each long sheet. My guess is that
the feed moves the paper to align with the first 11" of the sheet fed
in, scans that, and moves the paper to align the last 3" of the sheet at
the end of the plate, scan that, and the stitching doesn't have to
account for any overlap. Don't need another printer right now.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

Looking to scan 8.5 x 14 (legal) paper documents into 8.5 x 11 paper. I
have Canon's Scan & Stitch, but the halves of each end of the 8.5 x 14
scan don't match up. The top half (1st scan) is offset from the bottom
half (2nd scan). What I get after scan and stitch looks like:

**********
**********
********** (1st scan, top of legal doc)
********** <--.
********** <--|__ overlap (same content)
********** <--|
********** <--'
********** (2nd scan, bottom of legal doc)
**********
**********

Canon's tool does not align top with bottom. Plus it overlaps
(duplicates) some content from top into bottom. Looking for a free tool
that will scan, and stitch the top and bottom of a legal-sized document
with the top and bottom aligned with each other.

I did find Hugin (https://hugin.sourceforge.io/), but that seems
oriented to stitching together multiple pics into a panoramic pic. With
text only, the alignment would be on the overlapping text between the 2
scans of the top and bottom of the legal-sized page.

Some users noted Arcsoft's Scan-n-Stitch, but it's not free (but maybe
for the Deluxe edition), and looks like Arcsoft dropped it years ago. Apparently this is bundled with Epson printers, but likely a Lite
version that is free.

Long bed scanners that can handle a legal-sized sheet are expensive, and
take up a lot of space. Stitching software is either limp, or geared to
the user moving about multiple scans to sync the images to look like
panoramic pic. Then I thought: what about those scanners that don't
have a flat bed, but the document runs under a bar reader.

https://www.brother-usa.com/products/ds640 https://epson.com/For-Home/Scanners/Document-Scanners/WorkForce-ES-50-Portable-Document-Scanner/p/B11B252201

Can do a continuous scan up to 72 inches. Instead of a flatbed scanner
that runs a scan head across the page, the paper runs across the head.
I could stow one of those in a drawer since it would be infrequent use.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 01/15/2026 10:33 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

"Alan K." <alan@invalid.com> wrote:

Sorry, what I meant to ask is how to stitch together 14x8.5 legal size
paper to save in PDF files. I don't need to print them.

snip

Have you looked at the parameters of your printer?

I have had several HP printers/scanners that could scan legal size paper.

My last two could scan legal documents from its auto feed, or on the
flat bed scanner.

Of course I had to change the printer parameter to the legal size paper,
but that was just clicking legal size in the printer set up.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-01-15 22:13, VanguardLH wrote:

Looking to scan 8.5 x 14 (legal) paper documents into 8.5 x 11 paper. I
have Canon's Scan & Stitch, but the halves of each end of the 8.5 x 14
scan don't match up. The top half (1st scan) is offset from the bottom
half (2nd scan). What I get after scan and stitch looks like:

**********
**********
********** (1st scan, top of legal doc)
********** <--.
********** <--|__ overlap (same content)
********** <--|
********** <--'
********** (2nd scan, bottom of legal doc)
**********
**********

I have done it with gimp. Load each page on a different layer, play with transparency. It helps if you can write with ink or pencil a dot on the virtual edge that shows on both scans. I had trouble that the scan of of
one edge was not equal (on the overlap region) to the scan of the other
edge. Ie, there was distortion. When I had both pages aligned (both
rotation and shift), I simply eliminated the transparency, and saved the resulting photo.

However, for 250 pages, that's a tall order.

If no software solution is found, you need different hardware. A camera,
or a scanner that runs the document under a bar reader, as you say in
your last post.

--
Cheers, Carlos.
ES??, EU??;

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:

Looking to scan 8.5 x 14 (legal) paper documents into 8.5 x 11 paper. I
have Canon's Scan & Stitch, but the halves of each end of the 8.5 x 14
scan don't match up. The top half (1st scan) is offset from the bottom
half (2nd scan). What I get after scan and stitch looks like:

**********
**********
********** (1st scan, top of legal doc)
********** <--.
********** <--|__ overlap (same content)
********** <--|
********** <--'
********** (2nd scan, bottom of legal doc)
**********
**********

[Having read the other responses, including yours:]

As you have an (oldish) (Android) smartphone, you might want to try
some of the scan apps which were recently discussed in
comp.mobile.android.

As I mentioned there [1], the scan function of the Google Drive app is
quite good and handy, because you only have to point at the document and
it 'snaps' to it and 'scans' it, to PDF or JPEG. As this app just
'grabs' the document and leaves everything outside the document off,
size is irrelevant, so 8.5 x 14 (legal) paper documents should be fine.

I/the_thread also mentions other scanning apps, such as 'PhotoScan by
Google Photos'.

[...]

[1] Message-ID: <10jiusq.4fg.1@ID-201911.user.individual.net>

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

knuttle <keith_nuttle@yahoo.com> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

Sorry, what I meant to ask is how to stitch together 14x8.5 legal size
paper to save in PDF files. I don't need to print them.

Have you looked at the parameters of your printer?

I have had several HP printers/scanners that could scan legal size paper.

My last two could scan legal documents from its auto feed, or on the
flat bed scanner.

Of course I had to change the printer parameter to the legal size paper,
but that was just clicking legal size in the printer set up.

I also read where scanners with auto-feed could span legal-sized scans.
They feed just enough for the first scan, and feed a bit more for the
second scan, and stitch the scans together. Mine doesn't have
auto-feed. Plus, not all auto-feeders can incrementally scan a larger document.

Then there's the trick where you fold the paper in half, scan, turn
over, and scan again to stitch together. That what I did for now. I
would the paper in half, but ensure the fold was not over a line of text
(i.e., the fold was in white space), scan, flip over, scan again, and
stitch together. When scanning, I picked "B4 (B5 x 2)" for output size.
Per the app's instructions, the result had the 2nd scan shifted to the
left, to the stitched-together page had the top (1st scan) in the middle
with the bottom (2nd scan) shifted to the left. I tried to position the
paper partway from the alignment point in the corner of the platen
trying to get top and bottom to align, but other problems arose, so I
just left the stitching with top in middle, and bottom shifted to the
left. Not an ideal setup, and very time consuming.

I didn't like the trick of using a camera, like in a smartphone, to take
pics of the legal-sized paper to save in a PDF file. Problems with
angle, lighting, focal length, and so on. You could easily tell those
were photos of the papers. Looked amatuerish. But then my method of
stitching wasn't that great, either.

Typical scanners move the scan head across the platen to read the
document. That's where the physical size of the platen comes into play regarding documents that are larger. So, I thought, instead of having
the scan head move across the paper, why not have the paper move across
the scan head. I checked, and there are continuous feed scanners. I
mentioned a couple I found in a quick search in a reply to myself (MID <d9sruw9yidtu$.dlg@v.nguard.lh>).

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:

VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:

Looking to scan 8.5 x 14 (legal) paper documents into 8.5 x 11 paper. I
have Canon's Scan & Stitch, but the halves of each end of the 8.5 x 14
scan don't match up. The top half (1st scan) is offset from the bottom
half (2nd scan). What I get after scan and stitch looks like:

**********
**********
********** (1st scan, top of legal doc)
********** <--.
********** <--|__ overlap (same content)
********** <--|
********** <--'
********** (2nd scan, bottom of legal doc)
**********
**********

As I mentioned there [1], the scan function of the Google Drive app is
quite good and handy, because you only have to point at the document
and it 'snaps' to it and 'scans' it, to PDF or JPEG. As this app just
'grabs' the document and leaves everything outside the document off,
size is irrelevant, so 8.5 x 14 (legal) paper documents should be
fine.

Hmm, that could work. I'll experiment. Found some instructions at:

https://support.google.com/drive/answer/3145835?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid

Thanks for the info.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

VanguardLH wrote:

VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

Looking to scan 8.5 x 14 (legal) paper documents into 8.5 x 11 paper. I
have Canon's Scan & Stitch, but the halves of each end of the 8.5 x 14
scan don't match up. The top half (1st scan) is offset from the bottom
half (2nd scan). What I get after scan and stitch looks like:

**********
**********
********** (1st scan, top of legal doc)
********** <--.
********** <--|__ overlap (same content)
********** <--|
********** <--'
********** (2nd scan, bottom of legal doc)
**********
**********

Canon's tool does not align top with bottom. Plus it overlaps
(duplicates) some content from top into bottom. Looking for a free tool
that will scan, and stitch the top and bottom of a legal-sized document
with the top and bottom aligned with each other.

I did find Hugin (https://hugin.sourceforge.io/), but that seems
oriented to stitching together multiple pics into a panoramic pic. With
text only, the alignment would be on the overlapping text between the 2
scans of the top and bottom of the legal-sized page.

Some users noted Arcsoft's Scan-n-Stitch, but it's not free (but maybe
for the Deluxe edition), and looks like Arcsoft dropped it years ago.
Apparently this is bundled with Epson printers, but likely a Lite
version that is free.

Long bed scanners that can handle a legal-sized sheet are expensive, and
take up a lot of space. Stitching software is either limp, or geared to
the user moving about multiple scans to sync the images to look like panoramic pic. Then I thought: what about those scanners that don't
have a flat bed, but the document runs under a bar reader.

https://www.brother-usa.com/products/ds640 https://epson.com/For-Home/Scanners/Document-Scanners/WorkForce-ES-50-Portable-Document-Scanner/p/B11B252201

Can do a continuous scan up to 72 inches. Instead of a flatbed scanner
that runs a scan head across the page, the paper runs across the head.
I could stow one of those in a drawer since it would be infrequent use.

Was going to suggest a scanner with a continuous drive.
A co-worker has a portable Epson. It is very small and he takes it with
him on business trips. It can scan sections of well logs up to 6 feet
at a time. Unfortunately I don't know the model number and he is at a
remote drilling site at the moment.
Just checked with FedEx. They have legal scanners to PDF but want
55 cent per page.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:

VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:

Looking to scan 8.5 x 14 (legal) paper documents into 8.5 x 11 paper. I >>> have Canon's Scan & Stitch, but the halves of each end of the 8.5 x 14
scan don't match up. The top half (1st scan) is offset from the bottom
half (2nd scan). What I get after scan and stitch looks like:

**********
**********
********** (1st scan, top of legal doc)
********** <--.
********** <--|__ overlap (same content)
********** <--|
********** <--'
********** (2nd scan, bottom of legal doc)
**********
**********

As I mentioned there [1], the scan function of the Google Drive app is
quite good and handy, because you only have to point at the document
and it 'snaps' to it and 'scans' it, to PDF or JPEG. As this app just
'grabs' the document and leaves everything outside the document off,
size is irrelevant, so 8.5 x 14 (legal) paper documents should be
fine.

Hmm, that could work. I'll experiment. Found some instructions at:

https://support.google.com/drive/answer/3145835?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid

Thanks for the info.

I tried Google Drive's camera. It locked in the page, eliminated
everything outside the page, but the text on the captured pic was far
too faint to read. I tried different lighting, but the captured page
was illegible. Thanks for the info, though.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Paul in Houston TX <Paul@Houston.Texas> wrote:

Was going to suggest a scanner with a continuous drive. A co-worker
has a portable Epson. It is very small and he takes it with him on
business trips. It can scan sections of well logs up to 6 feet at a
time. Unfortunately I don't know the model number and he is at a
remote drilling site at the moment.

Just checked with FedEx. They have legal scanners to PDF but want 55
cent per page.

250 pages x 55 cents/page = $137.50. Uffdah, no thanks. On their copy machines, my library wants 20 cents/page which would cost $50. Kinkos
became FedEx Office, and they list at 71 cents/page, or $177.50 for 250
pages. Staples lists at 26 cents/page which would be $65 for 250 pages. Instead of paying them, I could put the money to a continuous scanner.

Fo now, I'll stick with the stitching procedure my printer affords: set
to B4 (B5x2) (B5 size times 2 into B4 size), fold in half, scan top,
flip over, scan bottom, stitch, and, for now, suffer the misalignment of
the bottom half.

I've got a couple continous scanners in my wishlist at Walmart: a Canon,
and an Epson. They claim continuous scanning to 72" (6 feet, same as
your friend). Those can stow in a drawer since they would rarely get
used. They are still limited to letter width (8.5"), but the only long
docs I've been hit with are legal size (14x8.5). There are scanning
wands, but you have to be consistent when dragging over the document.

I don't scan very often, so whenever I replace my current printer I'll
skip the all-in-one type, and go with a separate scanner and printer.
I'll already have the continuous scanner, so just need a printer. I
don't print much, either, but, in this case, I was scanning to PDF.

I tried Frank's suggestion of using the camera in the Google Drive app.
It would lock onto the edges of the page, and would take a photo of just
the page (everything outside the snap edges was omitted), but the text
on the page was so overly faint that the captured page was unreadable.
Adding more light (external or flash) just made the text fade away more.

The legal docs are gray text on white paper, not really deep black on
white, so they already don't have a lot of contrast. My old eyes
struggle to focus and deciper the text. The page didn't fade over time,
but was how they were printed. My scanner caught the page okay, so I
have a continuous scanner on my wishlist.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026/1/16 6:58:55, VanguardLH wrote:
[]

Long bed scanners that can handle a legal-sized sheet are expensive, and
take up a lot of space. Stitching software is either limp, or geared to
the user moving about multiple scans to sync the images to look like panoramic pic. Then I thought: what about those scanners that don't
have a flat bed, but the document runs under a bar reader.

https://www.brother-usa.com/products/ds640 https://epson.com/For-Home/Scanners/Document-Scanners/WorkForce-ES-50-Portable-Document-Scanner/p/B11B252201

Can do a continuous scan up to 72 inches. Instead of a flatbed scanner
that runs a scan head across the page, the paper runs across the head.
I could stow one of those in a drawer since it would be infrequent use.

There are roughly two ways those work: either they contain motorised
rollers and you feed the document through them, or they're a "wand" -
you sweep them across the document (they either pick up features in the document for reference, or they contain rollers that turn as you sweep).
They can be battery-powered and save to a memory card, or USB-powered. I
had one - feed-through i. e. motorised, USB powered, thinner than the
above two - came with a long thin bag to keep it in, like a sock. I
found it worked well, but you had to guide the document carefully as it
took it, otherwise you got an OK but slightly curved image. Was only 20
to 30 pounds as I remember - I think I got it from a clearance table at
a Staples. I haven't tried it on Windows 10.

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

aibohphobia, n., The fear of palindromes.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 1/16/2026 5:45 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

I didn't like the trick of using a camera, like in a smartphone, to take
pics of the legal-sized paper to save in a PDF file. Problems with
angle, lighting, focal length, and so on. You could easily tell those
were photos of the papers. Looked amatuerish. But then my method of stitching wasn't that great, either.

If you make a tool like this yourself:

https://www.amazon.de/-/en/JOURIST/dp/3898947645/

and use a remote control to take the pictures, I don't
think it will look "amateurish" and it is much faster than
a scanner.



--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Fri, 1/16/2026 7:08 PM, Herbert Kleebauer wrote:

On 1/16/2026 5:45 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

I didn't like the trick of using a camera, like in a smartphone, to take
pics of the legal-sized paper to save in a PDF file.ÿ Problems with
angle, lighting, focal length, and so on.ÿ You could easily tell those
were photos of the papers.ÿ Looked amatuerish.ÿ But then my method of
stitching wasn't that great, either.

If you make a tool like this yourself:

https://www.amazon.de/-/en/JOURIST/dp/3898947645/

and use a remote control to take the pictures, I don't
think it will look "amateurish" and it is much faster than
a scanner.

My copy of Microsoft Image Composite Editor 2.0.3 has these details.
This is the one I have on disk.

Name: ICE-2.0.3-for-64-bit-Windows.msi
Size: 7963136 bytes (7776 KiB)
SHA256: 3A39A8FFF473500186F56E6F79985BAE87A5B6D5F10ED3F8A3F40899D7FDDB43

There is a link I could find on dpreview for it. Download is immediate.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180724063025/https://download.microsoft.com/download/7/3/9/73918E0B-C146-40FA-B18C-EADF03FEC4BA/ICE-2.0.3-for-64-bit-Windows.msi

Select "Simple Panorama" so there is no Mercator Projection or other similar stuff.

Shift-click to select a couple files. Results are pretty fast on a modern computer.
The program will figure out where the overlap is, and align them.

If, on the other hand, you select 70+ scans and attempt to stitch them, it takes 80GB of RAM, a 2TB scratch hard drive (just for the program to use),
and it takes a week to run. Progress rate is 1.0MB/sec to 1.5MB/sec write rate to the 2TB scratch drive. Large projects, you have to be extremely patient, because a lot of arithmetic is being done to bend and twist stuff (and auto-fill missing
sheets from the stitched surface).

But for a couple overlapped scans, it should work pretty good.

While there is one piece of code that claims to be able to call into StitchEngine.DLL , and would allow conversion from the command line,
that code was written in C# and that's outside my pay scale.

The graphics are a bit "glitchy" on Win11, and I have my doubts this
can be fixed by using the Compatibility tab. The program might have
been intended to run on Win8, so it really should work on the newer stuff.

Paul

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:
[...]

I tried Frank's suggestion of using the camera in the Google Drive app.
It would lock onto the edges of the page, and would take a photo of just
the page (everything outside the snap edges was omitted), but the text
on the page was so overly faint that the captured page was unreadable.
Adding more light (external or flash) just made the text fade away more.

The legal docs are gray text on white paper, not really deep black on
white, so they already don't have a lot of contrast. My old eyes
struggle to focus and deciper the text. The page didn't fade over time,
but was how they were printed. My scanner caught the page okay, so I
have a continuous scanner on my wishlist.

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, that - gray text on white paper - is a
special situation, which indeed probably doesn't lend itself well to a
camera instead of a real scanner.

That's what you get for You Guys (TM) banning the use of our Calibri
font! :-)

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Fri, 16 Jan 2026 12:54:53 -0600, in
<10ke1i5$1u2i5$1@dont-email.me>, Paul in Houston TX
<Paul@Houston.Texas> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

https://www.brother-usa.com/products/ds640
https://epson.com/For-Home/Scanners/Document-Scanners/WorkForce-ES-50-Portable-Document-Scanner/p/B11B252201

Can do a continuous scan up to 72 inches. Instead of a flatbed scanner
that runs a scan head across the page, the paper runs across the head.
I could stow one of those in a drawer since it would be infrequent use.

Was going to suggest a scanner with a continuous drive.
A co-worker has a portable Epson. It is very small and he takes it with
him on business trips. It can scan sections of well logs up to 6 feet
at a time. Unfortunately I don't know the model number and he is at a >remote drilling site at the moment.

You might be thinking of an Epson ES-580W.

--
Jim H

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 17 Jan 2026 20:18:48 GMT, in
<10kgubg.igs.1@ID-201911.user.individual.net>, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:

VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:
[...]

I tried Frank's suggestion of using the camera in the Google Drive app.
It would lock onto the edges of the page, and would take a photo of just
the page (everything outside the snap edges was omitted), but the text
on the page was so overly faint that the captured page was unreadable.
Adding more light (external or flash) just made the text fade away more. >>
The legal docs are gray text on white paper, not really deep black on
white, so they already don't have a lot of contrast. My old eyes
struggle to focus and deciper the text. The page didn't fade over time,
but was how they were printed. My scanner caught the page okay, so I
have a continuous scanner on my wishlist.

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, that - gray text on white paper - is a
special situation, which indeed probably doesn't lend itself well to a
camera instead of a real scanner.

That's what you get for You Guys (TM) banning the use of our Calibri
font! :-)

Clibri is an abomination. Lower case Calibri 14 is the same size
vertically as Arial 12. And it's Calibri Light that's responsible for
most of that grey text. That said, Times New Roman is generally ADA non-compliant.

And to maybe halfway address the real topic of discussion, could the
left-right offset between pages have something to do with possible
gutter margin settings?

--
Jim H

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Jim H wrote:

On Fri, 16 Jan 2026 12:54:53 -0600, in
<10ke1i5$1u2i5$1@dont-email.me>, Paul in Houston TX
<Paul@Houston.Texas> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

https://www.brother-usa.com/products/ds640
https://epson.com/For-Home/Scanners/Document-Scanners/WorkForce-ES-50-Portable-Document-Scanner/p/B11B252201

Can do a continuous scan up to 72 inches. Instead of a flatbed scanner
that runs a scan head across the page, the paper runs across the head.
I could stow one of those in a drawer since it would be infrequent use.

Was going to suggest a scanner with a continuous drive.
A co-worker has a portable Epson. It is very small and he takes it with
him on business trips. It can scan sections of well logs up to 6 feet
at a time. Unfortunately I don't know the model number and he is at a
remote drilling site at the moment.

You might be thinking of an Epson ES-580W.

It's probably an Epson ES-50. It does not have wireless so predates the ES-60.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-01-15 21:13, VanguardLH wrote:

Looking to scan 8.5 x 14 (legal) paper documents into 8.5 x 11 paper. I
have Canon's Scan & Stitch, but the halves of each end of the 8.5 x 14
scan don't match up. The top half (1st scan) is offset from the bottom
half (2nd scan). What I get after scan and stitch looks like:

**********
**********
********** (1st scan, top of legal doc)
********** <--.
********** <--|__ overlap (same content)
********** <--|
********** <--'
********** (2nd scan, bottom of legal doc)
**********
**********

Canon's tool does not align top with bottom. Plus it overlaps
(duplicates) some content from top into bottom. Looking for a free tool
that will scan, and stitch the top and bottom of a legal-sized document
with the top and bottom aligned with each other.

I like to think that I'm becoming quite an expert on this now, having
produced around 14,000 scans during a family history project, many of
which were scanned in sections and then stitched together as follows ...

* Foolscap pages, which, as in your problem, on an A4 scanner have to
be scanned in 2 sections;
* Old legal documents having to be scanned in a 3x3 or 3x4 matrix;
* Family trees having to be scanned in matrices as large as 4x18;
* Large photos kept in rolls, some as large as 5x2
(having trouble with one of these right now);
* Individual photos stitched to make up a panorama;
* Etc.

I address your specific problem above first, but then give more general
advice ...

Many such legal documents, in fact most documents generally, do not have
equal left & right margins between the print and the edge of the page.
Even if they were designed to have equal margins, by the time they have
been printed and possibly photocopied, those equal margins are no more.
Thus, if you place the document on the scanner to do the top, and then
turn it 180 degrees to do the bottom, the left & right margins on the resulting scanned sections will be different, and may still be so even
after you've spun the digital second scan back through 180 degrees to
get the text in it the correct way up again.

As you have suggested somewhere in the thread, as with the foolscap
examples above, digital stitching software is probably overkill for this particular problem (however, for me it really has come into its own when
doing the more complex examples also listed above).

However, you have simple solutions to your particular problem, and none
are particularly difficult to do, but they are a little tedious, and
likely there's no getting around that:

1 Most software that comes with a scanner allows you to select the area
to be scanned, so simply choose an area with a comfortable margin less
than the smallest actual physical margin in the document(s), and simply
move the selection rectangle around with each scan so that the results
have consistent margins. This is what I do for preference.

2 Or use graphics software to crop the margins on the scans to make
them all the same, a few seconds job.

Then stitch the results by whatever method works. For simple cases as
in the foolscap above, I do it manually in graphics software:

A Increase the canvas size of the top scan to be large enough to allow appending the bottom - note that this is different from increasing the
image size, which latter doesn't help at all.

B Select an area of the bottom scan starting between the lines of text approximately half way down the area of overlap, downward to select the
rest of the bottom scan.

C Copy this selection into the clipboard.

D Paste it as an overlay or layers into/over the top section lining up
the text as exactly as you can. Once satisfied with the result, merge
down into a single layer image.

E Crop as desired.

F Save the result.

Given the two scans as a starting point, doing it manually this way I
can stitch a foolscap or legal document page in about a minute, minute
and a half, two at most.

As regards stitching scanned sections more generally, particularly more complex jobs, in principle at least, you can use most image editing
software to do it by hand, but it can be desperately time-consuming and tedious to do it this way. A successful stitch with automatic software
can save hours.

While I have managed to get Hugin (Linux) to work, I've had more
consistent results with Image Composition Editor (ICE) (Windows), for
which there is no longer an original download link on the Microsoft
site, but the program is still available via the web-archive:

https://web.archive.org/web/20191208054508/https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/product/computational-photography-applications/image-composite-editor/

Here are some tips, learned by often exasperated and wearisome
experience, for scanning sections to be stitched together and to get the
best out of stitching software ...

1) Set the scanner just to scan raw without attempting to optimise
the contrast or colour or otherwise digitally clean up the results.
You'll have to do the latter manually in external software once the
final correctly stitched image has been created. Failure to do this may
mean that with old faded documents the sections may end up with
different shades of grey as the background, and in the finished result
the joins will be obvious.

2) Make sure that there is sufficient overlap between the scanned
sections, probably about 2-2.5 cms (1 inch) all round. Anything smaller
tends to fail with misaligned results.

3) Try and keep the edges of the scanned sections as parallel as you
can. While a small amount of error will be accommodated by good
stitching software, larger errors will tend to cause significant problems.

4) Note that different programs mean different things by 'grayscale/greyscale', so if, for example, you you scan something as 'greyscale' using your scanner's software, but then decide to edit one section, perhaps to remove a blemish, before doing the stitch, you may
find that the edited section has been saved in a different format to the others, and the stitching software complains, as described here:

https://groups.google.com/g/uk.comp.os.linux/c/8laKirJfq18

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website: www.macfh.co.uk


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote:

On 2026-01-15 21:13, VanguardLH wrote:

Looking to scan 8.5 x 14 (legal) paper documents into 8.5 x 11 paper. I
have Canon's Scan & Stitch, but the halves of each end of the 8.5 x 14
scan don't match up. The top half (1st scan) is offset from the bottom
half (2nd scan). What I get after scan and stitch looks like:

**********
**********
********** (1st scan, top of legal doc)
********** <--.
********** <--|__ overlap (same content)
********** <--|
********** <--'
********** (2nd scan, bottom of legal doc)
**********
**********

Canon's tool does not align top with bottom. Plus it overlaps
(duplicates) some content from top into bottom. Looking for a free tool
that will scan, and stitch the top and bottom of a legal-sized document
with the top and bottom aligned with each other.

I like to think that I'm becoming quite an expert on this now, having produced around 14,000 scans during a family history project, many of
which were scanned in sections and then stitched together as follows ...

* Foolscap pages, which, as in your problem, on an A4 scanner have to
be scanned in 2 sections;
* Old legal documents having to be scanned in a 3x3 or 3x4 matrix;
* Family trees having to be scanned in matrices as large as 4x18;
* Large photos kept in rolls, some as large as 5x2
(having trouble with one of these right now);
* Individual photos stitched to make up a panorama;
* Etc.

I address your specific problem above first, but then give more general advice ...

Many such legal documents, in fact most documents generally, do not have equal left & right margins between the print and the edge of the page.
Even if they were designed to have equal margins, by the time they have
been printed and possibly photocopied, those equal margins are no more. Thus, if you place the document on the scanner to do the top, and then
turn it 180 degrees to do the bottom, the left & right margins on the resulting scanned sections will be different, and may still be so even
after you've spun the digital second scan back through 180 degrees to
get the text in it the correct way up again.

As you have suggested somewhere in the thread, as with the foolscap
examples above, digital stitching software is probably overkill for this particular problem (however, for me it really has come into its own when doing the more complex examples also listed above).

However, you have simple solutions to your particular problem, and none
are particularly difficult to do, but they are a little tedious, and
likely there's no getting around that:

1 Most software that comes with a scanner allows you to select the area
to be scanned, so simply choose an area with a comfortable margin less
than the smallest actual physical margin in the document(s), and simply
move the selection rectangle around with each scan so that the results
have consistent margins. This is what I do for preference.

2 Or use graphics software to crop the margins on the scans to make
them all the same, a few seconds job.

Then stitch the results by whatever method works. For simple cases as
in the foolscap above, I do it manually in graphics software:

A Increase the canvas size of the top scan to be large enough to allow appending the bottom - note that this is different from increasing the image size, which latter doesn't help at all.

B Select an area of the bottom scan starting between the lines of text approximately half way down the area of overlap, downward to select the
rest of the bottom scan.

C Copy this selection into the clipboard.

D Paste it as an overlay or layers into/over the top section lining up
the text as exactly as you can. Once satisfied with the result, merge
down into a single layer image.

E Crop as desired.

F Save the result.

Given the two scans as a starting point, doing it manually this way I
can stitch a foolscap or legal document page in about a minute, minute
and a half, two at most.

As regards stitching scanned sections more generally, particularly more complex jobs, in principle at least, you can use most image editing
software to do it by hand, but it can be desperately time-consuming and tedious to do it this way. A successful stitch with automatic software
can save hours.

While I have managed to get Hugin (Linux) to work, I've had more
consistent results with Image Composition Editor (ICE) (Windows), for
which there is no longer an original download link on the Microsoft
site, but the program is still available via the web-archive:

https://web.archive.org/web/20191208054508/https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/product/computational-photography-applications/image-composite-editor/

Here are some tips, learned by often exasperated and wearisome
experience, for scanning sections to be stitched together and to get the best out of stitching software ...

1) Set the scanner just to scan raw without attempting to optimise
the contrast or colour or otherwise digitally clean up the results.
You'll have to do the latter manually in external software once the
final correctly stitched image has been created. Failure to do this may mean that with old faded documents the sections may end up with
different shades of grey as the background, and in the finished result
the joins will be obvious.

2) Make sure that there is sufficient overlap between the scanned sections, probably about 2-2.5 cms (1 inch) all round. Anything smaller tends to fail with misaligned results.

3) Try and keep the edges of the scanned sections as parallel as you
can. While a small amount of error will be accommodated by good
stitching software, larger errors will tend to cause significant problems.

4) Note that different programs mean different things by 'grayscale/greyscale', so if, for example, you you scan something as 'greyscale' using your scanner's software, but then decide to edit one section, perhaps to remove a blemish, before doing the stitch, you may
find that the edited section has been saved in a different format to the others, and the stitching software complains, as described here:

https://groups.google.com/g/uk.comp.os.linux/c/8laKirJfq18

Probably the simplest solution is to use a continuous scanner. Instead
of moving the scan head a paper on the platen, the paper moves across a
fixed scan head. I found a Canon and Epson that will do that for about
$120 to $160. They can scan 8.5" wide, and up to 6 feet long. No
stitching needed. Will stow in a drawer. Not a free solution, but one
that doesn't require any stitching or artifacts therefrom. There are
also scanning wands, but you have to very good at a consistent and even
swipe across the sheet. When I get a continuous scanner, I'll use that
to read the legal documents to replace my stitched copies.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)