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Old 11-05-2006, 08:16 AM   #1
spinoza
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Digitize a paper book in 15 minutes!

For those who would like to convert their paper books to digital for personal use, I have found a quick and easy way to do this, though it does require you to use a sharp xacto knife to cut off the spine of the book. It takes a few minutes to cut through all the pages of a 300-page book (the cut needs to be clean, so use a sharp knife!). I then use the Fujitsu Scansnap scanner, which is a terrific device for duplex high-speed scannning. It can run through a 300-page book in a few minutes (feeding in 50 sheets at a time), and once scanned the Fujitsu software automatically indexes and formats the results into a PDF file. Voila, an instant ebook!
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Old 11-05-2006, 10:51 AM   #2
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Very nice, and very intriguing for those who want to read on their device, but are willing to buy the paper book and destroy it. That sounds great for flea market used books. There are also a lot of old books that I have and don't read partly because I don't like the dusty old book smell, which often gives me a headache.

And your success brings lots of questions...

* Does it have OCR capabilities with included software also?
* What settings did you use for the Sony Reader?
* Could you have done it to get larger text, say 18pt Times New Roman?
* How does it handle misfeeds, and how often do they happen?

Also, did you see the previous post by Studio717 about how Kinko's will do the cut for you.. https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...1452#post41452

I think someone else mentioned it also with a price (the cutting fee, I mean), but I don't remember.
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Old 11-05-2006, 11:10 AM   #3
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After reading the post I've been off investigating this scanner. It seems reasonably priced and with the addition of something like readiris pro (corprate edition) you could quite easily create an RTF or similar file from the PDF the scanner produces.
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Old 11-05-2006, 01:07 PM   #4
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I paid just over $300 for the Scansnap after the rebate. It does include Acrobat Standard (7.0, I believe) and the ABBYY FineReader OCR software, which works very well. Since you are doing 'dirty' indexing for the PDFs, the accuracy isn't as important. These apps, along with the Scansnap Manager, all work in tandem to make the process as automated as possible. The scanner occasionally misfeeds, but not very often, certainly not often enough to be a problem. It is relatively easy to correct the problem and keep going when it does misfeed. I'm still working on optimizing the settings for the Sony Reader, but you are correct in thinking that a 16-18-point font will be best. All in all, the Scansnap is a polished product that is a personal workhorse for me.
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Old 11-06-2006, 11:25 AM   #5
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Well, I just use the $45,000 Canon Copy/Scan machine with ADF at my office... heh. Drop the whole book in the feeder (after cutting of course) and it scans the entire thing duplex in a matter of mintues with rarely a misfeed (and 600dpi to boot).

Plenty of resolution to run through ReadIRIS and get accurate results sent to an RTF.

**Edit**

On that same note, I find that ReadIRIS for MAC has done a much better job at OCR than Paperport/Omnipage/etc. ever did. If nothing else, it lets me draw text and graphic "zones" and sort them in the order I want them in the finished RTF. It also has a "learning" feature that I never could find in the other programs (though I admit I was never that motivated to search for the feature before).

Works great for scanning complex layed out pages -- I have converted many of my mother's knitting patterns to electronic copies on her reader so she doesn't have to lug the large books around (in that case I hand scanned the pages, since I didn't want to destroy the book). Draw a graphic zone around the charts (so it doesn't try and make a funky looking table), sort all side bar notes into the first zones, and then put the remaining pattern sections in the other zones.

Last edited by bostonte; 11-06-2006 at 11:29 AM.
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Old 11-06-2006, 11:33 AM   #6
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Do you turn this stuff into PDFs? BBeB?
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Old 11-06-2006, 11:35 AM   #7
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RTF since depending on whether she's wearing her glasses or not, my mother definately needs the size adjustment feature -- which doesn't work well on PDFs.

I haven't gotten into the book designer things to create BBeB files yet. That's my next project now that I've gotten the OCR to work reliably.
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Old 11-06-2006, 11:41 AM   #8
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So, apparently, you can put pics in RTF and they work ok on the Reader.

Have you tried scanning paperbacks?
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Old 11-06-2006, 02:54 PM   #9
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If bostonte has figured out how to get pix to display in an RTF on a Sony Reader there are a lot of folks interested in the how, 'cause I don't think anyone else has (I haven't).

Please share, bostonte!
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Old 11-06-2006, 03:42 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NatCh
If bostonte has figured out how to get pix to display in an RTF on a Sony Reader there are a lot of folks interested in the how, 'cause I don't think anyone else has (I haven't).

Please share, bostonte!
Ugh? Yeah? Pics in RTF? Inquiring minds want to know....
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Old 11-06-2006, 06:11 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bostonte
Well, I just use the $45,000 Canon Copy/Scan machine with ADF at my office... heh. Drop the whole book in the feeder (after cutting of course) and it scans the entire thing duplex in a matter of mintues with rarely a misfeed (and 600dpi to boot).

Plenty of resolution to run through ReadIRIS and get accurate results sent to an RTF.

**Edit**

On that same note, I find that ReadIRIS for MAC has done a much better job at OCR than Paperport/Omnipage/etc. ever did. If nothing else, it lets me draw text and graphic "zones" and sort them in the order I want them in the finished RTF. It also has a "learning" feature that I never could find in the other programs (though I admit I was never that motivated to search for the feature before).

Works great for scanning complex layed out pages -- I have converted many of my mother's knitting patterns to electronic copies on her reader so she doesn't have to lug the large books around (in that case I hand scanned the pages, since I didn't want to destroy the book). Draw a graphic zone around the charts (so it doesn't try and make a funky looking table), sort all side bar notes into the first zones, and then put the remaining pattern sections in the other zones.
Hi. Um...can I be your friend?
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Old 11-07-2006, 01:38 PM   #12
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Umm.... I just checked "Include Graphics" when I converted Image and Text PDF to RTF. I wasn't sure it was possible, but saw the box - ticked it -- and went on my merry way.

I'll have to get the memory card from her so I can open them in Wordpad or such and see what's going on.
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Old 11-07-2006, 01:44 PM   #13
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What we're all het up to know is how you got the images to display in RTF on the Reader!
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Old 11-08-2006, 12:40 PM   #14
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Fujitsu ScanSnap

Quote:
Originally Posted by spinoza
... I then use the Fujitsu Scansnap scanner, which is a terrific device for duplex high-speed scannning. ...
Could you please clarify for us which model of the Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner you're describing? I am very interested, and checked the Fujitsu website for info. If I understand correctly, the ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2 is for Windows systems and the fi-5110EOXM is for Macintosh systems. But when I click through to the purchase area I see only the ScanSnap S500. Confused...
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Old 11-08-2006, 04:29 PM   #15
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The Fujitsu Website is a bit confusing, but my understanding is that the S500 is the most recent model, and this is the one I own. I'm using it with Windows, even though my primary machine is a Mac. This is because the Mac version does not include the ABBYY OCR software, at least not now. As a Scansnap owner, I do highly recommend it as a solid, well-designed device.
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