The main window
There are several ways of opening the main window.
- You can double click on a file type that the program is configured to load (see choices). A window will open displaying that image
- You can drop a file that the program understands on the icon bar icon. Again, a window will open displaying that image
- Clicking with select will open an empty window. An image file can be dragged and dropped in to any open window, whether empty or not. The image will be displayed, overwriting any image already present
In most bit map programs, there is no such thing as an empty window. However, because DPlngScan can be used for acquiring images, it is quite a sensible thing. Another difference to packages like Paint, is that the window is in general not exactly the same size as the image you have loaded. In DPlngScan the window represents a work area. This can be the area of your scanner, or the area of your printer. You can move images around the work area to control where they are printed on paper. Similarly by marking an area of the work space you can select which bits of a page your scanner will scan.
Usually when the main window opens, two smaller
windows will also open. These are the 'toolbox' (see right) and the
'info palette' (see below). By clicking on the toolbox icons, you can
choose the current tool. The info palette displays useful information
about the current image, and also allows you to control the image by
either typing in values or clicking on the icons. When typing in
values, it is normally necessary to use the RETURN key to register the
changes. The info palette display will change depending on the current
tool. The tools are the pointer, the grabber hand, the rectangular
selection and the magnifier. These are described below.

One thing common to all the info palettes is the set of three buttons Undo, Redo, and Scan. If the image has been altered then Undo allows you to go back to the previous version of the image. The number of available undo steps is set in Choices. Redo allows you to reinstate a change after you have 'undone' a change.
Scan will invoke the scanning process. You must have an attached scanner, and the TWAIN driver loaded.