Quote:
Originally Posted by Davimee
Just out of curiosity, how do you go about scanning your books? Do you have a special scanner just for books? Or do you have to cut off the binding to get a flat page? Also, once you scan them, do you save the book as a PDF, and if so, how does that look on your Pocket Pro? I've got a couple books I've considered scanning, but we just have a normal flat bed scanner (I think that's what it's called... it's big and flat, and has a lid that comes down over the paper being scanned), and it doesn't work real well for books. I'm guessing it's going to be more work than it's worth, since there are just a couple of them that I'm wanting scanned.
Thanks!  |
First of all, I've been scanning my books for about 10 years, every since I got my first flat bed scanner with my WinME, which upgraded with WinXP, but did not upgrade to WinVista. (so I bought an all-in-one)
Second, the books I scan are 99.9% paperbacks, though I have done some hard backs and full sized softsided. For the paperbacks, I have just bitten the bullet and folded them all the way flat. (Prior to ereaders, when I just wanted a copy, I tried to not bed the spine, because I still read the book. By my eyesight has gotten so bad I can't focus on the small print, so I flatted the book and crease the spine). After I flatted them, I DO NOT put the lid down, but I do find some moderately heavy item to place on each side of the open book. Currently I'm using a stapler for the thick side, and something like a camera for the other side. This keeps the paper flat to the scanner glass. Hardbacks are the worse as far as laying flat, and the larger softsided would be like paperbacks.
Third, my original flat bed scanner allowed me to save to my word processor with OCR, but I found that drag and dropped into my word processor worked great. However, my new all-in-one will not allow me to cut and paste the text, so I have to save it to a pdf. Fortunately it allows multi-page pdfs, so I usually scan an entire chapter at a time. The all-in-one also allows me to frame different sections, so I scan the open paperback, frame the two pages; making sure the first page is selected, I select the "all" button to scan all the selections, thus my scanner does page 1 then page 2. (If I had left page 2 selected when I selected "all", I think the scanner would have scanned page 2 then page 1) After all the pages of the chapter is scanned I "save" the file (as a pdf).
...I have just recently, like this week, found the setting that allows my scanning to not be as sensitive and not pick up all the little dots on the page as characters. On my scanner options this is called "Threshold". I've moved it from 100 to 80 and I get a cleaner scan.
Fourth, I "open pdf file" in my word processor which OCR's the file. I do the cleanup, save all the chapters together, mark the chapter headings, etc, and save it in my Word Processor. I am still deciding on the best method to get an epub book.
Before Astak gave us the 9 zoom levels in epub, I converted my file to a very specific format pdf so it would have large enough text. Now, the 9 zooms in epub, and the new coolreaderl give me many different options. So I'm still playing with the final output.
I hope this gives you some idea of the procedure.
AJ
PS I use Word Perfect 9 for my word processor, though I think Word will open pdfs also.
PPS For those who have the garbage in their scanned books, I highly recommend this "Threshold" function, it practically emilinated all garbage in my scans.