Book scanner looking for Mac solutions

VLMaples · 01-08-2012, 04:10 PM

Hi! I am a stay at home mom and caregiver to a disabled husband and daughter. We volunteer making books print accessible to people with disabilities. I REALLY want to go all Mac, but my OpticBook 3600 is PC only and wondered if there are any Mac book edge scanners and more "industrial" software since I scan over 100 books a year. I would easily double that with a feasible Mac solution.

Thanks!
Valerie

DDHarriman · 01-08-2012, 05:58 PM

Hello

I do not have a Mac and do not understand a thing about them, but the beta file for Mac (http://plustek.com/usa/products/opti...downloads.html) in Plustek’s website could not help?

Another possibility would be to run a widows solution on a Mac via per example parallels (http://www.parallels.com), or other similar solution, and than install the windows software for the opticbook on it…

Best regards,

VLMaples · 01-13-2012, 01:56 AM

Thanks for taking the time to write. I should have written more about what I had done. I have tried the OpticBook Mac driver, but it was very primitive and could not interface with OCR software. It is strictly a page at a time, and not practical for large books; fine for a couple of pages, if it works. I then went tried Parallels at one time, and Fusion another, but it slowed to a crawl on the Internet side (for uploading work to the volunteer site) and that just wasn't cutting it. So, I finally went to Boot Camp, but having to restart multiple times a day was just making me crazy. So, I am hoping to find a Mac solution ideally. Does that help some? I am a full time caregiver for my husband and daughter, so I need things to run fluidly and my Macs just do...

rfog · 01-16-2012, 10:21 AM

Well, you do no really need a scanner. You can photo each page. There are some homemade solutions like showed in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSrk31FSwmw

andym · 01-18-2012, 11:03 AM

You could always try Vuescan - download the trial version and see if it works.

As far as doing OCR is concerned, I have IRIScan Pro which seems to work reasonably well.

But depending on what Mac you have you may be best installing Windows using the Basecamp Setup Assistant and running ABBY Finereader. Whether this is the best solution for you is going to depend on how much scanning you do - if you are planning on scanning a lot of pages then it could well be worth shutting down and rebooting into Windows.

01-08-2012, 04:10 PM	#1
VLMaples Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2012 Device: iPad	Book scanner looking for Mac solutions Hi! I am a stay at home mom and caregiver to a disabled husband and daughter. We volunteer making books print accessible to people with disabilities. I REALLY want to go all Mac, but my OpticBook 3600 is PC only and wondered if there are any Mac book edge scanners and more "industrial" software since I scan over 100 books a year. I would easily double that with a feasible Mac solution. Thanks! Valerie

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01-08-2012, 05:58 PM	#2
DDHarriman Guru Posts: 860 Karma: 4380 Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Almada, Portugal Device: Cybook Gen3, Sony PRS 505, Kindle DXG and Samsung Galaxy Note	Hello I do not have a Mac and do not understand a thing about them, but the beta file for Mac (http://plustek.com/usa/products/opti...downloads.html) in Plustek’s website could not help? Another possibility would be to run a widows solution on a Mac via per example parallels (http://www.parallels.com), or other similar solution, and than install the windows software for the opticbook on it… Best regards,

01-13-2012, 01:56 AM	#3
VLMaples Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2012 Device: iPad	Thanks for taking the time to write. I should have written more about what I had done. I have tried the OpticBook Mac driver, but it was very primitive and could not interface with OCR software. It is strictly a page at a time, and not practical for large books; fine for a couple of pages, if it works. I then went tried Parallels at one time, and Fusion another, but it slowed to a crawl on the Internet side (for uploading work to the volunteer site) and that just wasn't cutting it. So, I finally went to Boot Camp, but having to restart multiple times a day was just making me crazy. So, I am hoping to find a Mac solution ideally. Does that help some? I am a full time caregiver for my husband and daughter, so I need things to run fluidly and my Macs just do...

01-16-2012, 10:21 AM	#4
rfog Guru Posts: 696 Karma: 2383012 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Schiedam (The Netherlands) Device: Lots of eInk devices and iOS stuff	Well, you do no really need a scanner. You can photo each page. There are some homemade solutions like showed in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSrk31FSwmw

01-18-2012, 11:03 AM	#5
andym Groupie Posts: 189 Karma: 793 Join Date: Oct 2006	You could always try Vuescan - download the trial version and see if it works. As far as doing OCR is concerned, I have IRIScan Pro which seems to work reasonably well. But depending on what Mac you have you may be best installing Windows using the Basecamp Setup Assistant and running ABBY Finereader. Whether this is the best solution for you is going to depend on how much scanning you do - if you are planning on scanning a lot of pages then it could well be worth shutting down and rebooting into Windows.

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