Scanner recommendation

[Skydog]

Lately I have been contemplating the idea of scanning and converting some of my favorite old paper books but have no experience doing so. I prefer a dedicated scanner that will not require the destruction of my books.

As I am in the research/learn stage, are there any sites offering reviews of hardware & software that would be helpful for a novice in making a decision?

Is the Opticbook 3600 still a viable option? Is something faster a better choice?

Thank you in advance...

[Mr. Dalliard]

I recently purchased an Opticbook 4600 and have already scanned over 4000 A4 pages without any problems, and with satisfactory speed. Bundled software is a bit crap though.

Software-wise, ABBYY Finereader is an excellent choice.

[Skydog]

Thank you for your reply - very helpful!

[AFK_Matrix]

I too am interested in putting my hundereds of books into ebook format. If I went for the Opticbook3600, would it come with the right software or would I have to purchase the software seperately?

Is a scanner and software all that I need or is there anything else to convert my books? Oh I too don't want to destroy my books to scan them.

[ascherjim]

Originally Posted by AFK_Matrix

I too am interested in putting my hundereds of books into ebook format. If I went for the Opticbook3600, would it come with the right software or would I have to purchase the software seperately?

Is a scanner and software all that I need or is there anything else to convert my books? Oh I too don't want to destroy my books to scan them.

As you can perhaps read in a number of my postings in other related threads in this forum, I use and am very pleased with the OpticBook3600. It comes with ABBYY Finereader Sprint version 5 which I have found quite simple and effective to use. I recently upgraded to the Finereader Pro 10, not because I was dissatisfied with the Sprint 5, but because over the holiday season ABBYY offered a tremendously attractive offer of the Pro 10 upgrade at half-price -- at $89 -- and it does have a few additional features that I find useful. But you can download for free and try the Pro 10 (with limitations) on a trial basis.

[AFK_Matrix]

Thanks for the info ascherjim. I was very interested in getting a Opticbook3600 as I can get one for £160 which isn't too bad. Just so I have this right would I have to scan every single page one at a time?? Also from the pictures would i have to turn the book upside down on the scanner so i can do both sides, would i then have to use the software to rotate page??

[ascherjim]

Originally Posted by AFK_Matrix

Thanks for the info ascherjim. I was very interested in getting a Opticbook3600 as I can get one for £160 which isn't too bad. Just so I have this right would I have to scan every single page one at a time?? Also from the pictures would i have to turn the book upside down on the scanner so i can do both sides, would i then have to use the software to rotate page??

Even though the prime feature of the OpticBook is the ability to lay the book at right angles and scan individual pages without harming (overly bending) the binding, you can nevertheless use the scanner as an ordinary flatbed scanner. You can thus lay the book flat and scan two (facing) pages at a time. The FineReader software separates those two scanned pages into separate (individual) pages, as if you had scanned only one page at a time. The page orientation (upside down or not) is not a concern, as the software renders the pages all with the same orientation. Hope this is helpful.

[Skydog]

Originally Posted by AFK_Matrix

Also from the pictures would i have to turn the book upside down on the scanner so i can do both sides, would i then have to use the software to rotate page??

I was wondering about this too. And, yes, it is a one-page-at-a-time operation.

[Skydog]

Originally Posted by ascherjim

As you can perhaps read in a number of my postings in other related threads in this forum, I use and am very pleased with the OpticBook3600. It comes with ABBYY Finereader Sprint version 5 which I have found quite simple and effective to use. I recently upgraded to the Finereader Pro 10, not because I was dissatisfied with the Sprint 5, but because over the holiday season ABBYY offered a tremendously attractive offer of the Pro 10 upgrade at half-price -- at $89 -- and it does have a few additional features that I find useful. But you can download for free and try the Pro 10 (with limitations) on a trial basis.

Does the Finereader Sprint version 5 allow scanning to HTML?

[ascherjim]

Originally Posted by Skydog

Does the Finereader Sprint version 5 allow scanning to HTML?

This version of FineReader does not provide for a direct saving in the HTML format, as the Pro 10 does. However, as you have to edit (proof-read) whatever you scan anyway, the Sprint version does allow exporting whatever you've scanned to word processors, such as Word and Wordperfect. And those word proceessors do provide for conversion to HTML.

[pholy]

I have a 3600. Yesterday I scanned a 250 page book in about an hour, using the side scan and rotate book method. It took about an hour, so four pages per minute. I don't have Word or Word Perfect, so Abbyy Sprint 5 puts into rtf and opens WordPad for me. That conversion took about 2-4 minutes maybe - I didn't time it. I haven't found a lot of recognition errors, but removing the page breaks (because I don't try to crop out page numbers) and the hyphens can take a few more hours... Then I open it with Open Office and save to html. That's as far as I've gotten so far.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Mr. Dalliard

I recently purchased an Opticbook 4600 and have already scanned over 4000 A4 pages without any problems, and with satisfactory speed. Bundled software is a bit crap though.

Software-wise, ABBYY Finereader is an excellent choice.

Plustek has a really bad website. Using flash for your menus is bad form.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pholy

I have a 3600. Yesterday I scanned a 250 page book in about an hour, using the side scan and rotate book method. It took about an hour, so four pages per minute. I don't have Word or Word Perfect, so Abbyy Sprint 5 puts into rtf and opens WordPad for me. That conversion took about 2-4 minutes maybe - I didn't time it. I haven't found a lot of recognition errors, but removing the page breaks (because I don't try to crop out page numbers) and the hyphens can take a few more hours... Then I open it with Open Office and save to html. That's as far as I've gotten so far.

But can Abby Finereader do direct HTML output?

[pholy]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But can Abby Finereader do direct HTML output?

My Sprint version 5 doesn't. I haven't checked on the Express version 9 ($49) or the Pro version 10 ($400 - $500, I can't remember, but $200 for upgrade).
I'm not sure I would want it to, unless I had a really easy way of fixing the (very few) mis-recognitions and the (lots of) font size changes and hyphens and premature end of paragraphs...

I'm still learning, though

[ascherjim]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But can Abby Finereader do direct HTML output?

I've already answered this above. Our postings might have crossed.