Import files & images
Drag-and-drop or browse to import PDFs and images, individually or in bulk.
Want to get documents you already have on disk into Scanix? You have three ways to do it from the Home screen — drag and drop, Import Files, and Import Folder — plus a Batch Process option for running a template over many files at once. They all accept the same formats and land your pages in the Viewer, ready for OCR and field capture.
This page covers manual, one-off imports. To import continuously and hands-free — a folder that picks up anything dropped into it — set up a hot folder instead.
Drag and drop
The fastest way in: drag files from your file manager onto the drop zone on the Home screen.
Drag your files onto the drop zone
The left half of the Home hero is a drop target. While you drag over it, it highlights and reads Drop your files here (it reads Drag & drop files when idle).
Review the queue
Dropped files don't load immediately — they queue as thumbnails, so you can curate them first. The zone shows N files ready — click Import to load, and you can drag to reorder the thumbnails, remove any one of them, or Clear the whole queue. Drag more files in at any time to add them to the queue (the zone shows a Drop to add hint).
Click Import Files to load
Press Import Files to bring the queued pages into the Viewer.
Screenshot
The Home screen drop zone mid-drag, highlighted and reading "Drop your files here", with the vertical Scan and Import Files buttons on the right. — shot importing-files-and-images-01
Import Files (browse)
Prefer a file dialog? Click Import Files with an empty queue — or press Ctrl+O — to open the standard picker. It's filtered to the supported document types, so you can only choose files Scanix can read. Pick one file or several, and they open together in the Viewer.
Import Folder
To bring in a whole directory, start from a template card on Home and choose Import Folder. Scanix asks you to pick a folder, then opens a curation list of everything inside so you can confirm exactly what comes in before anything loads.
Pick the folder
Choose the directory you want to import from. Scanix reads its contents and shows a count of supported files alongside the total.
Curate the list
Every supported file starts checked. Use the toolbar to fine-tune the selection:
- Select all — check every supported file.
- Deselect all — clear the selection.
- Hide unsupported — collapse the list to only the files Scanix can import.
Files Scanix can't read are tagged Unsupported and can't be checked; sub-folders are tagged Folder. The footer keeps a running N of M supported files selected tally.
Confirm the import
Click Import N files to load your selection into the Viewer in one batch.
Screenshot
The Import-from-folder picker: the file list with checkboxes, an Unsupported tag on one row, the Select all / Deselect all / Hide unsupported toolbar, and the Import N files button. — shot importing-files-and-images-02
Bulk and batch processing
Importing many files at once is fully supported — drop a stack onto the drop zone, multi-select in the file dialog, or pick a whole folder, and Scanix streams the pages into the Viewer as they're ready so you can start working before the last file lands.
When your goal is to run a template over a pile of files and watch it progress, use Batch Process instead. From a template card on Home, choose Batch Process to run that template across multiple files with a batch progress bar.
Screenshot
A template's action menu on Home showing the Scan from Scanner, Import Files, Import Folder, and Batch Process options. — shot importing-files-and-images-03
With a template vs. without
What happens after your pages load depends on how you started the import — this is the key difference to understand.
Dragging and dropping, or using the top-level Import Files button, is a free import. Your pages open in the Viewer and stop there — Scanix does not run OCR automatically. You start OCR yourself when you're ready, from the page or document buttons. There are no fields to validate until you do, so a free import shows no field-status indicators.
Starting from a template card on Home (its Import Files, Import Folder, or Batch Process options) runs that template against your pages automatically — OCR and field extraction happen without an extra step, so structured data is captured as the pages load.
Importing creates a batch in the Viewer — it doesn't produce an output file on its own. Exporting happens afterward, from the Viewer once your pages and fields look right.
Supported formats
Every import route — drag and drop, Import Files, and Import Folder — accepts the same set of formats:
| Format | Extensions |
|---|---|
.pdf | |
| JPEG | .jpg, .jpeg |
| PNG | .png |
| TIFF | .tif, .tiff |
| BMP | .bmp |
Anything outside this list is skipped: the file dialog won't offer it, and the folder picker marks it Unsupported.
Multi-page TIFF
A multi-page (multi-frame) TIFF currently imports its first page only — the remaining frames aren't brought in yet. If your source is a multi-page TIFF, convert it to PDF first to keep every page.
Troubleshooting
Next steps
Run OCR
Read the text on your imported pages so fields can be extracted and validated.
The Viewer
Where imported documents land — organise pages, check fields, and send work onward.
Hot folders
Watch a folder so dropped documents are imported and processed automatically, hands-free.
Related
- Run OCR — extract text and fill fields from your imported pages.
- The Viewer — the workspace every import opens into.
- Hot folders — automate importing with a watched folder.