Scanning in your own books

[Shaggy]

Somehow ended up with the same post twice???

[Hellmark]

Depends on the compression settings. Most apps default to 85% for Jpeg, which can cause issues with OCR unless you scan it in as a larger image to counter act that.

[ascherjim]

Originally Posted by ascherjim

I'm intrigued by the new feature in FR 10 concerning E-books and HTML. Not only because it indicates new (or increased) recognition of what many of us will be using scanners (and their software) for.

I've just noted the newly-posted price on the ABBYY web site for the new FR version 10 -- $399 ($179.99 for upgrades)! I guess I'll be sticking with the FR Sprint version 6 that came free with my OpticBook scanner (which cost me only $230). I'll muddle along as best I can with the fewer FR Sprint OCR features.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by ascherjim

I've just noted the newly-posted price on the ABBYY web site for the new FR version 10 -- $399 ($179.99 for upgrades)! I guess I'll be sticking with the FR Sprint version 6 that came free with my OpticBook scanner (which cost me only $230). I'll muddle along as best I can with the fewer FR Sprint OCR features.

For the one book I've done the sprint version worked quite well. I had the scanner scan to RTF (it does a Tiff behind the scenes and leaves you with an RTF file) and I had very few errors to correct. I did have to manually remove headers, but that wasn't too bad. For $400 I'd have to be scanning an awful lot of books I think.

[srml]

Originally Posted by ascherjim

I've just noted the newly-posted price on the ABBYY web site for the new FR version 10 -- $399 ($179.99 for upgrades)!

Funny, here in Europe it's 139 € for the full version. That's about 205 US$. Some shops here in Switzerland sell it for less than 150 US$.


Daniel

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by ascherjim

I've just noted the newly-posted price on the ABBYY web site for the new FR version 10 -- $399 ($179.99 for upgrades)! I guess I'll be sticking with the FR Sprint version 6 that came free with my OpticBook scanner (which cost me only $230). I'll muddle along as best I can with the fewer FR Sprint OCR features.

You can buy the upgrade version.

** Upgrade is available from:
- ABBYY FineReader 5.0 Professional/Corporate Edition,
- ABBYY FineReader 6.0 Professional/Corporate Edition,
- ABBYY FineReader 7.0 Professional/Corporate Edition,
- ABBYY FineReader 8.0 Professional/Corporate Edition,
- ABBYY FineReader 9.0 Professional/Corporate Edition,
- ABBYY FineReader Sprint 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, 9.0

[Ea]

I just tried ABBYY on a Danish book. I've been using the limited version of Omnipage that came with my scanner, but it can't learn and is no use at all with Danish. I'm very impressed with ABBYY - it was almost flawless.

[wayrad]

Originally Posted by igorsk

You can buy the upgrade version.

That's what I did - used the Sprint version bundled with my Opticbook to justify the upgrade pricing. I still thought long and hard about it beforehand, but once I had the full version it was worth it.

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by Ea

I just tried ABBYY on a Danish book. I've been using the limited version of Omnipage that came with my scanner, but it can't learn and is no use at all with Danish. I'm very impressed with ABBYY - it was almost flawless.

Yes, their language support is amazing. They support basically anything using Latin-based or Cyrillic-based alphabets, and in recent versions added Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Hebrew. I guess the only major script they're still missing is Arabic.

[lybrary]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

No. Your friend may have a right to the digital version, but you are not authorized to distribute that material. If you gave your digital copy to your friend you would be committing copyright infringement, even though your friend is allowed to digitize their own version.

Further, while you are not allowed to give your digital copy to your friend, it's probably true that your friend can hire you to digitize his copy of the printed book. Even though the end result is exactly the same, this time it is probably legal.

The 'hiring to do a digital version' is an interesting concept. This would mean that one could create an online forum where people who have digitized a book would offer to do the same work for others. Somebody could mail the book to that person and that person would digitize it for them. Since they have already digitized that same book they really only copy the digital version they already have and email it to the customer. The price could be the cost of mailing the book back. Strictly speaking that would require mailing the book to the digitizer and then he would mail it back. In the US media mail isn't that expensive and thus for a few bucks this could work. Perhaps some don't want the book back.

I guess you will still get sued for it.

[Ea]

Hiring someone would mean that someone makes money off copying. This exact point is central to the way the law is set up in Denmark. It's fine to make a copy of something you own for your own private use, provided you do it yourself. The point being that no-one makes money from the copying.

It's also okay to make a so-called "analogue" copy of something you borrow, such as CD to tape or a photocopy of a book - again, provided you do it yourself. I think the law was made mostly with a view to music, because while it's easy to make a digital copy of a CD, it's quite a bit of work to convert a p-book into an e-book. The main point though - decreased quality of the copy, so as not to make a free, exact copy of the original work - is the same.

All in all, as the law is explained on the web site of the Cultural Ministry, the intent is to not bother people if they want use things they've bought legally, in whatever way they wish. The law could be improved, but at least I feel that as long as I don't deprive someone of possible income, I am with the intent of the law, if not completely within the letter of the law. I guess this goes for many of us here

A bit more info here - through Google translator

[katysax]

Fujitsu Scansnap S1500 scans directly to PDF and comes with a reduced version of AABBYY. It has a document feeder that works quite well for up to about 30 pages at a time, and reads double sided. If I take a book to Kinkos or somewhere similar and have them cut off the spine for about $3, I can feed the book 30 pages at a time into the Scansnap. Scans a page in a few seconds. Works best to then feed it into the OCR and clean it up. With minimal cleanup a 300 page book can be scanned and converted in about a half hour. It's quite readable - not good enough to distribute but easy enough to read. Since my goal is conversion for myself, it works fine.

[ascherjim]

Originally Posted by wayrad

That's what I did - used the Sprint version bundled with my Opticbook to justify the upgrade pricing. I still thought long and hard about it beforehand, but once I had the full version it was worth it.

For now I'm on the side of AnemicOak above and using and so far quite satisfied with the free bundled Sprint version. But nice to know, from igorsk and yourself (wayrad) that I can get FR 10 as a less expensive (but still pretty dear) upgrade if I decide that I require that much additional firepower. Thanks to all for sharing your thoughts and experience on this matter.

[HauntedAttic]

I'm using a Kodak ScanMate i1120 scanner and I highly recommend it if you're willing to spend some time learning the software. I'm very impressed with the Kodak software, and the more I learn the settings the better the results. The scanner comes with OmniPage 15. My initial results with OmniPage were dissatisfying, so I switched to Abbyy FineReader 6 Sprint. Abbyy works well with almost any grayscale or color images, but this early version, at least, lacks any customization and has some annoying attributes that kept me toying with OmniPage.

With some experimentation, I learned OmniPage works best with a clean B&W TIFF, something the ScanMate i1120 excels at producing once you figure out the settings. The beauty of this is that it produces an archival-quality file that's only 16 MB for a 300 page book (compared to over 2 GB for a grayscale TIFF).

I'm now getting better results from OmniPage than from Abbyy Sprint. OmniPage also offers automation and customization galore. The combination of the Kodak software and OmniPage make the ScanMate i1120 an impressive tool for home book scanning.

[ascherjim]

Originally Posted by HauntedAttic

I'm using a Kodak ScanMate i1120 scanner and I highly recommend it if you're willing to spend some time learning the software. I'm very impressed with the Kodak software, and the more I learn the settings the better the results. The scanner comes with OmniPage 15. My initial results with OmniPage were dissatisfying, so I switched to Abbyy FineReader 6 Sprint. Abbyy works well with almost any grayscale or color images, but this early version, at least, lacks any customization and has some annoying attributes that kept me toying with OmniPage.

With some experimentation, I learned OmniPage works best with a clean B&W TIFF, something the ScanMate i1120 excels at producing once you figure out the settings. The beauty of this is that it produces an archival-quality file that's only 16 MB for a 300 page book (compared to over 2 GB for a grayscale TIFF).

I'm now getting better results from OmniPage than from Abbyy Sprint. OmniPage also offers automation and customization galore. The combination of the Kodak software and OmniPage make the ScanMate i1120 an impressive tool for home book scanning.

As stated earlier, for now I am finding the ABBYY Sprint 6 version, which I paid nothing for, to be working quite well. It seems to have sufficient basic customization for my needs, but more importantly (for me) I can apply the "block" application recommended by Elfwreck above, which works perfectly. Even though Elfwreck has a later FineReader version than the Sprint, the Sprint also has this "block" capability.

The newest version of OmniPage (I believe it's 17) has a dollar price almost exactly the same as the new FineReader 10. However, the OmniPage version 15, which HauntedAttic recommends, is apparently still available, new, for about $39. If my Sprint ultimately proves deficient for my book scanning needs, I may investigate the OmniPage version 15. I will have to download its manual to see its additional features over the Sprint.