Converted pBook to eBook?

[anamardoll]

Have you ever (or would you) convert a pBook to an eBook? I converted my first one this weekend -- Lilek's Gallery of Regrettable Food -- and it was very fun and liberating for me... but my husband was sad and thought it was being mean to the paper book.

I thought saving it for eternity was more respectful in the long run, but I know that a lot of people feel that conversion is essentially defacement...

The hardest thing was knowing what to do with the leftovers. I'm not sentimental about ripping the book up, but I am about putting the pages in recycling. How odd of me.

[Ravensknight]

I wanted Michael Moorcock's second Corum trilogy. It simply didn't exist in ebook form. So I bought some cheap used copy, razored it and scanned it in page by page.

I don't think I'll ever do it again. It was labor intensive, sigh

[mr ploppy]

I use a camera on a tripod, 2 lamps from a DIY shop, a post office letter measurer thing to prop the book up on, and a sheet of glass for books that will open up flat (or my hands if it's a book I don't want to open up more than 90 degrees). Takes about half an hour to photograph 100 pages.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Ravensknight

I wanted Michael Moorcock's second Corum trilogy. It simply didn't exist in ebook form. So I bought some cheap used copy, razored it and scanned it in page by page.

I don't think I'll ever do it again. It was labor intensive, sigh

I have a cheap ($250) Canon 4-in-1 scanner that allows you to feed in stacks, so that helped a lot. I couldn't bear to do individual pages for anything longer than Where the Wild Things Are (which was too big to set in the feed tray).

[AkumaTakeshi]

But as images, is there a way to detect the text after? So it can be use the e-reader features? Or you're just talking about .pdf's and such?

[amward]

Life ain't long enough! Not that I would have a clue how to do it any way. And I'm happy to have a Pbook if it doesn't exist as an ebook.

[gweeks]

I've done a few. It's not worth the work unless I can share them. Mostly I've ran them through www.pgdp.net to get them proofed. I've done a few simple scans for my own use.

Greg Weeks

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by AkumaTakeshi

But as images, is there a way to detect the text after? So it can be use the e-reader features? Or you're just talking about .pdf's and such?

So far, I've just done image-heavy stuff as PDF files.

The OCR software that I've seen online isn't cheap and I'm not quite ready to invest in that. At least as much because it's a major time sink at that point, too.

[tomsem]

I plan to do some serious scanning when this thing is available:

http://www.ionaudio.com/products/details/book-saver

[wyndslash]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I plan to do some serious scanning when this thing is available:

http://www.ionaudio.com/products/details/book-saver

that...that is so cool d;

[Elfwreck]

I've converted 7 books that I had to chop the spines off, 8 more that I scanned flatbed because I didn't want to damage the originals, and have 3 or 4 more chopped in process. (And those are the ones I've chopped myself for my own conversions. I've also done conversions from Archive.org scans and zines that other people have scanned & wanted OCR'd versions of.)

The ones I've finished fall into two categories: out-of-print RPG gaming materials, and Pagan religious studies. There aren't going to be commercially-released ebook versions of either.

Having a job where we chopped & scanned hundreds of books helped get me over the idea that books had tremendous value in their physical form. (Nothing like chopping & scanning 7 volumes of the History of Freemasonry to get past the notion of books as Artifacts Of Lore and think of them as Nuisances Of Page-Jamming And Who The Hell Decided To Print The Photo Credits On Tissue Paper Anyway?) Of the 10 or so I've chopped, I've kept the originals, and am considering rebinding them with a comb binding; I'd lose the outside spine but keep them as usable paper books.

I use FineReader Pro, and am considering forking out the $$$ for the upgrade to 10.

[DMB]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I plan to do some serious scanning when this thing is available:

http://www.ionaudio.com/products/details/book-saver

This looks good. I imagine it will be rather expensive though.

I don't think I'd find the time to use it often, however. I bought something for converting VHS tapes to DVD but hardly did any in the end. I have a better record on converting CDs to MP3s but still have hundreds of CDs waiting.

[Richey79]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I use a camera on a tripod, 2 lamps from a DIY shop, a post office letter measurer thing to prop the book up on, and a sheet of glass for books that will open up flat (or my hands if it's a book I don't want to open up more than 90 degrees). Takes about half an hour to photograph 100 pages.

A very convenient way of doing it!

The last one I scanned, I scanned each page individually. Having a music stand and a spare digi-cam around the place, think I'll start looking for a sheet of glass to use next time.

[caleb72]

Hmmm - actually this is of interest to me. However, I don't think I could bring myself to damage even a paperback that way.

Are there any good sites where I can learn about the various techniques? I have a scanner and I have a web cam and (of course) a digital camera. I would love to convert some of my heavier (hard to read) books into digital.

Up until now I was just thinking about repurchasing them all as ebooks but some are not available and there's always the cost factor.

[wyndslash]

this would probably be very expensive, but it does provide an option to those who might be more willing to buy a used copy then do the hard stuff themselves then buy an ebook that they feel is more expensive ;D /a bit of sarcasm in there