Is manual page capture the real bottleneck in scanning owned physical books?

adldotori · 07-06-2026, 09:28 AM

For people who have scanned personally owned or public-domain books: where does the workflow usually become impractical?

I’m especially curious about the capture stage before OCR/export:
- turning pages one by one
- keeping the book flat without damaging the binding
- avoiding gutter shadows/distortion
- checking page order
- avoiding skipped or double-captured pages
- simply spending too much time per book

Do you find that manual capture is the part that prevents you from scanning more books, or do the harder problems come later in OCR, cleanup, EPUB/PDF output, or Calibre/device management?

theducks · 07-06-2026, 11:41 AM

IMHO OCR phase is the worst part, even assuming the photo capture was perfect.
There are common errors m instead if r n, 1 instead of l . errors at Punctuation is another.

Maybe AI could help, since what is there, usually does not make sense or simply needs a de-hyphen

Quoth · 07-06-2026, 12:49 PM

There are scanners where you don't have to keep the book flat & even a good camera can be used with a 3rd party mount.

OCR and human proofreading is still the bottleneck if you want a real ebook. That's why Topaz was popular for a while. Download an ebook on Gutenberg and the same on Internet Archive as PDF and as ebook. Compare "ebook" from Archive vs human proofed ebook from Gutenberg.

Don't bother downloading ebooks from Archive. They are rubbish.

In the 1980s when OCR gained ability to use any font it was called "AI".

SuperComfySoft · 07-06-2026, 01:20 PM

I have good memories of using ABBYY FineReader (which at some point used to be one of the best things?) to digitize some books and being devastated the results were still not good enough to use for anything really.

Comfy.n · 07-06-2026, 01:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SuperComfySoft

I have good memories of using ABBYY FineReader (which at some point used to be one of the best things?) to digitize some books and being devastated the results were still not good enough to use for anything really.

Hey, good name. ABBYY Finereader still rules nowadays, IMO.

Old but gold was the Cuneiform OCR:

https://www.instantfundas.com/2010/0...zes-up-to.html

ekbell · 07-07-2026, 10:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quoth

Don't bother downloading ebooks from Archive. They are rubbish.

I agree that the OCR is miserable, rubbish even.

Still as someone interested in old forms of textile work, the scans are very useful. I am grateful that I can download a 16th century pattern book when I'd never ever be able to access the original.

Highroller · Yesterday, 01:41 PM

That is a great question, as the manual effort of page-turning and ensuring scan quality seems like a significant hurdle before even reaching the OCR stage.

rkomar · Yesterday, 02:43 PM

From personal experience, proofreading after the OCR stage was enough to keep me from wanting to read that book again for at least the next ten years. So, that kind of defeated the purpose of the exercise. I just leave the pages as cleaned-up scans now and don't try to convert to text.

07-06-2026, 09:28 AM	#1
adldotori Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2026 Device: kindle	Is manual page capture the real bottleneck in scanning owned physical books? For people who have scanned personally owned or public-domain books: where does the workflow usually become impractical? I’m especially curious about the capture stage before OCR/export: - turning pages one by one - keeping the book flat without damaging the binding - avoiding gutter shadows/distortion - checking page order - avoiding skipped or double-captured pages - simply spending too much time per book Do you find that manual capture is the part that prevents you from scanning more books, or do the harder problems come later in OCR, cleanup, EPUB/PDF output, or Calibre/device management?

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07-06-2026, 11:41 AM	#2
theducks Well trained by Cats Posts: 31,868 Karma: 64181416 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: The Central Coast of California Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A	IMHO OCR phase is the worst part, even assuming the photo capture was perfect. There are common errors m instead if r n, 1 instead of l . errors at Punctuation is another. Maybe AI could help, since what is there, usually does not make sense or simply needs a de-hyphen

07-06-2026, 12:49 PM	#3
Quoth Still reading Posts: 15,548 Karma: 114630301 Join Date: Jun 2017 Location: Ireland Device: All 4 Kinds: epub eink, Kindle, android eink, NxtPaper	There are scanners where you don't have to keep the book flat & even a good camera can be used with a 3rd party mount. OCR and human proofreading is still the bottleneck if you want a real ebook. That's why Topaz was popular for a while. Download an ebook on Gutenberg and the same on Internet Archive as PDF and as ebook. Compare "ebook" from Archive vs human proofed ebook from Gutenberg. Don't bother downloading ebooks from Archive. They are rubbish. In the 1980s when OCR gained ability to use any font it was called "AI".

07-06-2026, 01:20 PM	#4
SuperComfySoft SCS Communications Adviso Posts: 11 Karma: 40090 Join Date: Apr 2026 Device: iPad	I have good memories of using ABBYY FineReader (which at some point used to be one of the best things?) to digitize some books and being devastated the results were still not good enough to use for anything really.

Yesterday, 01:41 PM	#7
Highroller Groupie Posts: 152 Karma: 338 Join Date: Nov 2004 Device: Ebookwise 1150, Jetbook Lite, Slick Er-701	That is a great question, as the manual effort of page-turning and ensuring scan quality seems like a significant hurdle before even reaching the OCR stage.

Yesterday, 02:43 PM	#8
rkomar Wizard Posts: 3,121 Karma: 18944169 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Sudbury, ON, Canada Device: PRS-505, PB 902, PRS-T1, PB 623, PB 840, PB 633	From personal experience, proofreading after the OCR stage was enough to keep me from wanting to read that book again for at least the next ten years. So, that kind of defeated the purpose of the exercise. I just leave the pages as cleaned-up scans now and don't try to convert to text.