New trend? digitize your books for $1USD each.

[WaltC]

Originally Posted by BuddyBoy

Just a quick question for anyone who has used them, when counting pages, does a single double sided sheet count as two pages or one page? It's certainly two images, so I imagine it counts as two pages, but thought I'd better check.

BuddyBoy,
It's funny that they don't explicitly discuss that in their FAQs. Not even in the business document section where you'd expect there to be some discussion of single sided and double sided material.

Nonetheless, I'm 99.9% certain it's per page (not per sheet) in the same way that copier places charge 2x typically (on a per sheet basis) for double sided originals v.s. single sided ones-- that's how I paid for mine when I recently ordered 2 large books to be scanned. They just arrived at 1dollarscan and are scheduled to be scanned on 12/24; I guess they're planning to work on Xmas eve.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by sufue

The link is:

http://system.1dollarscan.com/downlo...ader0.1.13.air

Hey, thank you for this. Much easier than trying to eyeball everything and make sure I got it all.

[Kevin8or]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Once ABBYY has processed the book, I save it as an HTML page, and then load that HTML file into Sigil and Save As... Epub.

Ana, thanks for sharing your 1DollarScan experience. How do you deal with headers and footers (like page numbers) that are simply eyesores when using flowing text on an e-reader?

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Kevin8or

Ana, thanks for sharing your 1DollarScan experience. How do you deal with headers and footers (like page numbers) that are simply eyesores when using flowing text on an e-reader?

When I save from ABBYY to HTML, the headers and footers disappear. I really do not know why -- I was expecting to have to manually pick them all out (or write a regular expression) but I've noticed that with three or four books now: ABBYY will "read" the headers/footers into text, but they disappear when I "Save As... HTML" and then open in Sigil.

I'm not sure where the benevolent magic is occurring in this equation.

[Kevin8or]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

When I save from ABBYY to HTML, the headers and footers disappear.

Very nice! I've used pdftohtml & pdfreflow together, but results have been mixed. Unfortunately, I'm not ready to pay > $150 for ABBYY.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Kevin8or

Very nice! I've used pdftohtml & pdfreflow together, but results have been mixed. Unfortunately, I'm not ready to pay > $150 for ABBYY.

They had, I think, a $99 sale recently. Maybe they'll have another one again soon? I hope so.

[anamardoll]

So remember when they introduced the monthly membership thing for $100 a month, and you got 50 sets (500 pages) and they'd name the file properly and such? Only it wasn't a great deal because 50 sets normally cost $50 and most of us didn't want to pay $50 extra to get the files named properly?

Well, I guess they listened, because now the deal is $100 a month for 100 sets. Which is what I was already paying, but now they fast-track your package, if you're a member. *signs up*

[maxbookworm]

Are they serious about the 2.5" thick limit? I have a very thick book to scan, but since they cut the spine off and scan page by page, why should it matter how thick the book is? Also, do you know if they're willing to cut off the page headers and numbers as well as the spine, to make it a cleaner conversion to a different format? I emailed them all these questions, but haven't heard back...

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by maxbookworm

Are they serious about the 2.5" thick limit? I have a very thick book to scan, but since they cut the spine off and scan page by page, why should it matter how thick the book is? Also, do you know if they're willing to cut off the page headers and numbers as well as the spine, to make it a cleaner conversion to a different format? I emailed them all these questions, but haven't heard back...

I would assume they're serious about the limit because they're not feeding in page after page -- presumably there's a feed loader where they slap the book in and it has a size limit of 2.5 inches. It's possible they could cut it in half, but you'd better ask them.

As for trimming the margins, that would be a huge hassle for them. I doubt they have the equipment for it. It'd be easier for you to do it on the scans themselves: "Quick PDF Tools" allows you to convert with a single click 1 PDF into a directory of images and "Irfanview" image software allows you to batch crop/trim images, like, say, take 50 pixels off the bottom and 100 pixels off the top. I hope that helps.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I would assume they're serious about the limit because they're not feeding in page after page -- presumably there's a feed loader where they slap the book in and it has a size limit of 2.5 inches. It's possible they could cut it in half, but you'd better ask them.

The feed loader is easy enough to get around. They might even be doing the scanning in batches of 100 pages (which would partly explain how they count sets).

I reckon the 2.5" limit might be the maximum that their spine cutter thingy can accommodate.



Just signed up for the Platinum Membership and shipped 32 books (graphic novels) directly from Amazon. I've been wanting to buy the comics for a long time but there's just no more space in our tiny apartment to store all those books. They're usually like 190~210 pages each so I played it safe and only sent 32 (@3 sets ea = 96) but it looks like they were all less than 200 pages each so I can send quite a bit more. Will wait for the scans before I send in more books.

[anamardoll]

Be sure to download the Adobe AIR downloader thing -- so much faster.

[ilovejedd]

Just received my first set of scans. Quality is pretty decent, particularly for the price. The scans I did myself are a little better. However, since I can barely scan a full book in one weekend, I'd say it's a good compromise and will continue to use the service.

[Kumabjorn]

Have you tried converting the PDFs into mobi or epub? Do they look good on you Sony and Nook?

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Have you tried converting the PDFs into mobi or epub? Do they look good on you Sony and Nook?

The Calibre PDF conversion will literally just make an epub of pictures out of these scans. (I tried.) If you want to convert, you'll have to get something like ABBYY FineReader, which is what I use. The whole process take about an hour of my time, and has very little margin of error.

[ilovejedd]

Just received some more scans. The scan quality for this new batch is very, very good. The quality was similar to or even better than the scans I do myself. I'm thinking the discrepancy from the first set may be due to a change in paper quality. The publishing company used better quality paper for the reprints and later volumes. I'm very, very happy with the service.

Only sent graphic novels for now, though, so no experience with actual books and OCR. I've still got hundreds of books. Will likely make good use of the Platinum Membership for a year or so.