Paper books, anyone have a quick workflow to digitize snippets with phone?

bounce · 12-29-2017, 04:05 PM

Trying to get highlights from paper books digitized. I use textgrabber app on phone (ios) to take pic/OCR and then crop the section I want, then send to Evernote. It's an OK workflow, but curious if anyone has a faster method?

rcentros · 12-29-2017, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bounce

Trying to get highlights from paper books digitized. I use textgrabber app on phone (ios) to take pic/OCR and then crop the section I want, then send to Evernote. It's an OK workflow, but curious if anyone has a faster method?

I don't know what eReader you're using, but with my Kindle, I can just highlight text and go to http://read.amazon.com/notebook, log in, and my highlights are there. I can then copy and paste them. I think there is a limit to how long these highlights can be.

I've also highlighted text in my Fire and copied and pasted to Simplenote (which is available on all my devices and doesn't try to format the text like Evernote does).

For longer highlights (a page or two) I go to Calibre and copy and paste from there.

bounce · 12-30-2017, 03:11 PM

Maybe I should have made it clearer, I'm talking about marginalia I made in my *paper* book library. Trying to get all that digitized so it's more accessible and editable.
Wondering the best ways to OCR it with my phone camera and so far the best method has been with taking a pic of page with the *ios* textgrabber app then cropping the areas I made highlights and notes (to put into a digital notebook). It's clunky and time-consuming so I'm wondering if there are better methods. Cheers

sjfan · 12-30-2017, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bounce

Trying to get highlights from paper books digitized. I use textgrabber app on phone (ios) to take pic/OCR and then crop the section I want, then send to Evernote. It's an OK workflow, but curious if anyone has a faster method?

I've used text fairy successfully in the past, but I believe it's Android-only.

GlenBarrington · 12-30-2017, 05:43 PM

Have you considered Microsoft Office Lens?

Lens Link

I like that I can save whiteboard and document images directly to OneNote or to OneDrive. I don't see how any software can do OCR on handwritten notations. That's asking a lot.

bounce · 12-30-2017, 06:53 PM

Thanks for the reminder, hadn't used that app since it came out. I just tried it and while it works pretty well it seem the text isn't immediately editable like textgrabber. Thinking about migrating to onenote at some point, so maybe in the future.

A machine reading my handwriting would be a Turing test. The marginalia is mostly pointing to text in the book to be OCR'd.

crich70 · 01-06-2018, 07:37 AM

I think there is a pdf scanner app or some such that a person can use via their Kindle fire to scan a document in. I forget the name as I haven't really had use for it. Of course if it isn't necessary to be so portable most printers have scanners built in now. I just got a new one (A Canon) at Wal-Mart not long ago. It works great.

12-29-2017, 04:05 PM	#1
bounce Zealot Posts: 135 Karma: 13892 Join Date: Mar 2010 Device: Ipad, Kindle 7	Paper books, anyone have a quick workflow to digitize snippets with phone? Trying to get highlights from paper books digitized. I use textgrabber app on phone (ios) to take pic/OCR and then crop the section I want, then send to Evernote. It's an OK workflow, but curious if anyone has a faster method?

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12-30-2017, 03:11 PM	#3
bounce Zealot Posts: 135 Karma: 13892 Join Date: Mar 2010 Device: Ipad, Kindle 7	Maybe I should have made it clearer, I'm talking about marginalia I made in my paper book library. Trying to get all that digitized so it's more accessible and editable. Wondering the best ways to OCR it with my phone camera and so far the best method has been with taking a pic of page with the ios textgrabber app then cropping the areas I made highlights and notes (to put into a digital notebook). It's clunky and time-consuming so I'm wondering if there are better methods. Cheers

12-30-2017, 05:43 PM	#5
GlenBarrington Cheese Whiz Posts: 1,986 Karma: 11677147 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Springfield, Illinois Device: Kindle PW, Samsung Tab A 10.1(2019), Pixel 6a.	Have you considered Microsoft Office Lens? Lens Link I like that I can save whiteboard and document images directly to OneNote or to OneDrive. I don't see how any software can do OCR on handwritten notations. That's asking a lot.

12-30-2017, 06:53 PM	#6
bounce Zealot Posts: 135 Karma: 13892 Join Date: Mar 2010 Device: Ipad, Kindle 7	Thanks for the reminder, hadn't used that app since it came out. I just tried it and while it works pretty well it seem the text isn't immediately editable like textgrabber. Thinking about migrating to onenote at some point, so maybe in the future. A machine reading my handwriting would be a Turing test. The marginalia is mostly pointing to text in the book to be OCR'd.

01-06-2018, 07:37 AM	#7
crich70 Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,310 Karma: 43993832 Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Monroe Wisconsin Device: K3, Kindle Paperwhite, Calibre, and Mobipocket for Pc (netbook)	I think there is a pdf scanner app or some such that a person can use via their Kindle fire to scan a document in. I forget the name as I haven't really had use for it. Of course if it isn't necessary to be so portable most printers have scanners built in now. I just got a new one (A Canon) at Wal-Mart not long ago. It works great.

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