good scanner for books ?

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Polyglot27

Does anybody on the forum own a Fujitsu ScanSnap s1300? It seems to be a simpler version of the s1500 and takes only 10 pages at a time in the feeder. If the quality of the scans and the time taken is similar, it might be worth saving the 200 euros difference in price.

I don't own the s1300 but, according to the specs, it holds only 10 sheets at a time instead of the 1500's 50. Speed is 2-4 ppm opposed the 1500's 20 ppm. From looking at the illustrations, the infeed chute is lower in height with the 1300 than with the 1500; that might cause some feed problems. I suggest going to amazon.com to check out the customer reviews to see if that is an issue. Scan quality seems to be the same.

If you have very many books to do I would recommend the s1500. If you will do only a handful a year, you could probably get by with the s1300.

One thing that will save you money is, if all you want to do is scan books, don't get the deluxe package of either scanner. The only difference between the deluxe package and the regular one is the Rack2filer organizing software which is geared toward office paper organization.

One thing to keep in mind with either scanner is dust from the cut edges of the books. Using a saw blade of any kind to remove the spine will leave a friable edge that will shed dust no matter what you do to try and get rid of it. Also, the microscopically rougher edges will "key" together causing more misfeeds. Fine book dust is insidious in its ability to penetrate fine openings. It is far better to use a guillotine type paper cutter to cut away the spine. Since those are expensive, breaking down a book into smaller sections and using a more conventional (and affordable) paper cutter is also an option if you don't have too many books to do.

It is imperative to keep the scanner clean of book dust. Do NOT use any kind of compressed air/gas to clean the scanner since that will drive dust into the "works" and will cause streaking in the scans, especially color scans (it also voids the warranty). A good vacuum cleaner works much better for cleaning and should be used after scanning each book. The glass platens should also get cleaned with a solvent safe for LCD screens to eliminate any glue buildup.

[Adjust]

http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/13/a...-the-booksnap/

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Adjust

http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/13/a...-the-booksnap/

Lessee...$440.00 USD for a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 that can scan 500 pages in 5-10 minutes + $350 USD for a decent guillotine vs. $1600.00 USD + the cost of cameras ($500.00 USD/pair, give or take) and scan 500 pages in an hour (maybe, I'm guessing more). Depends how valuable the books are whether you want to spend more and not cut them apart or spend less and chop them up.

[Tomsk]

Originally Posted by Polyglot27

Does anybody on the forum own a Fujitsu ScanSnap s1300? It seems to be a simpler version of the s1500 and takes only 10 pages at a time in the feeder. If the quality of the scans and the time taken is similar, it might be worth saving the 200 euros difference in price.

I recently purchased one.

I can't compare it to an S1500, but it's a lot faster than my multifunction Canon (flatbed, no ADF). It took about 30 minutes to scan a 270 page (135 sheet) A5 sized (approx 6"x 8") full colour manual on it's default settings.

I was about to purchase the Plustek AD450, but decided to get the S1300 because spare parts seemed to be more freely available.

Bear in mind that the S1500 comes with Adobe Acrobat, which on it's own (in the UK) costs ~£300!

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Does the s-1300 come with Acrobat? The descriptions I saw online were a bit vague.

[Polyglot27]

Thank you Lady Fitzgerald. I'll be sure not to use a saw. A bookseller friend of mine who has a guillotine will be happy to cut the spines off the books for me. My problem is similar to yours in that I moved from a 5 room house in Australia to a 3 room flat in Paris and space is running out for books. The PDF feature also seems the right way to go since there is no OCR for Chinese and Japanese which I also read.
By the way Tomsk, have you tried cutting and scanning in an average paperback yet? I would be interested to know the time taken and the quality of the resulting PDF file. How big was the file of the 270 page colour manual you scanned and was the colour satisfactory?

[Lady Fitzgerald]

The s-1500 doesn't do the greatest job in color or grayscale (I'm assuming results from the s-1300 will be similar). The scans come out slightly faded looking and a tad on the light looking side. I was able to correct that on the color comics I scanned by scanning thjem to .jpg, editing them as a batch using Infranview, then converting to PDF with Acrobat. I had to jack up the contrast and reduce the brightness to get a decent color rendition (it also helped to correct fading of the originals due to age). I don't do that much color other than book covers (and I'm not particular about them) so it's not that big a deal to me.

Books scanned in black and white average about 15 MB. The color comics were enormous so I reduced them to around an average of 30 MB in Acrobat without any loss of quality. I tried reducing books scanned in black and white but quality suffered often enough to not be worth the slight reduction I was getting. It was also time consuming so I just don't bother.

[Tomsk]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

Does the s-1300 come with Acrobat? The descriptions I saw online were a bit vague.

No.
Mine came with Abbyy Finereader v4.1, ScanSnap Manager V5.1, ScanSnap Organizer V4.1, CardMinder V4.1, Scan to SharePoint 3.3.5

Originally Posted by Polyglot27

By the way Tomsk, have you tried cutting and scanning in an average paperback yet? I would be interested to know the time taken and the quality of the resulting PDF file. How big was the file of the 270 page colour manual you scanned and was the colour satisfactory?

Files size wass 85MB.
The colours OK, but I'm viewing the manual on my Kindle DX.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Tomsk

No.
Mine came with Abbyy Finereader v4.1, ScanSnap Manager V5.1, ScanSnap Organizer V4.1, CardMinder V4.1, Scan to SharePoint 3.3.5...

The price difference between the s1300 and the s1500 isn't a whole lot more than the cost of Adobe Acrobat 9 Standard which comes with the s1500. I never felt I needed Acrobat until I actually got it and now I will never be without it. It works so much better than any virtual printer I've ever used (and still do for creating file formats other than PDF) for creating PDFs and it has the ability to edit your PDFs, such as page rotation, insertion, deletion, rearranging, etc. You can create table of contents, bookmarks. You can also make PDFs searchable using the built in OCR. All of this true with any PDF, not just the ones created with the s1500 scans. It's so versatile, I don't even keep Adobe Reader on either of my machines.

Based on the fact the s1300 doesn't come with Acrobat, I can't recommend it over the s1500 for any reason unless one already has a recent version of Acrobat.

[Tomsk]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

Based on the fact the s1300 doesn't come with Acrobat, I can't recommend it over the s1500 for any reason unless one already has a recent version of Acrobat.

I agree completely.
In the UK the price difference is even greater.
An S1300 costs ~£230, an S1500 costs ~£330 and Acrobat 9 std costs ~£280!

I already have Acrobat 7 pro and I didn't need the extra speed of the S1500, so I saved £100.

[Polyglot27]

Thank you again Lady Fitzgerald for pointing out that Acrobat 9 Standard is included in the S1500. I have taken the plunge and bought the S1500. My partner is now busy feeding all her university notes on A4 sheets through it. The speed at which it swallows all that paper is nothing short of amazing. We have already thrown out (into a real recycling bin, that is) at least 5kg of paper since she started yesterday.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Polyglot27

Thank you again Lady Fitzgerald for pointing out that Acrobat 9 Standard is included in the S1500. I have taken the plunge and bought the S1500. My partner is now busy feeding all her university notes on A4 sheets through it. The speed at which it swallows all that paper is nothing short of amazing. We have already thrown out (into a real recycling bin, that is) at least 5kg of paper since she started yesterday.

No problem. I'll send you a bill at the end of the month.

[SameOldStory]

You guys are making me feel like a small child about to get his first tricycle!

One of the first books that got me interested in history was "The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream" by G C Edmondson. I still have the original 1965 book. I also have two "updated" versions of the same book.

The thought of cutting it up was unthinkable, but I did want an ebook version. So I photographed each page (preserving the book intact) and converted them. I've just finished doing an eyeball scan to clean it up. It's probably 85% clean at this point. I'm now reading it to detect errors. All in all, a pain in the butt. I don't think that I could do that again.

Now that I found the REAL pros I feel so pathetic. My best wishes and a great big round of applause go out to you guys.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by SameOldStory

You guys are making me feel like a small child about to get his first tricycle!

One of the first books that got me interested in history was "The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream" by G C Edmondson. I still have the original 1965 book. I also have two "updated" versions of the same book.

The thought of cutting it up was unthinkable, but I did want an ebook version. So I photographed each page (preserving the book intact) and converted them. I've just finished doing an eyeball scan to clean it up. It's probably 85% clean at this point. I'm now reading it to detect errors. All in all, a pain in the butt. I don't think that I could do that again.

Now that I found the REAL pros I feel so pathetic. My best wishes and a great big round of applause go out to you guys.

I don't blame you for not wanting to cut up an original printing of a book that is dear to you. I have a handful in the same category. I will admit the first few dozen books I did cut up were ones I could easily replace if I messed up (which I did with a couple during the learning curve).

The way you scanned your book is perfectly acceptable and does spare the book. Just keep in mind that, depending on where you live, there could be legal issues regarding book copying. In the USA, copyright laws allow one to make a copy for archival purposes. You have to retain ownership of both copies, however. If you decide to sell or give away the original, you would have to either destroy the copy or give the copy to whoever receives the original; you cannot keep a copy for yourself. Media change (replacing an original with a copy in a different medium and destroying the original) is also legal. This option would also allow you to legally have a second copy in the new medium. In the UK, no copying of any kind is allowed. I can't say for elsewhere. Keep in mind as long as you aren't distributing any copies and are doing it for your own use, you will probably not run afoul of the law. It would be up to you if you would want to violate the law or not if it is illegal where you live.

If ever decide to do a large number of them, you might check with Iain. He has developed software that may make the job much easier. There are other programs available that will straighten out the curvature of photographed pages prior to OCR.

Btw, I do not consider myself to be a pro. I consider myself to be an expert (ex is a has been and spurt is a drip under pressure). When I embarked on my current project, I didn't know squat.

[SameOldStory]

I live in the north eastern Pennsylvanian wilderness, so I’m safe on all counts.

I'm sure that the proper software and equipment would make it so much easier. But I don't have a strong urge to convert most of my books.

Over the recent years I've given away many of my books, keeping (mostly) those that I know I'll want to reread later.


I just did a quick count. I have about 30 - 35 books that I would really like to convert and wouldn't mind cutting up. I could probably find more in the 4 active bookcases, and another 25 -35 out in the shed.

Compared to buying ebook replacements, where possible, getting a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 would probably be a better deal. If only I had the money for all the better deals out there. I've never seen them in the Flea Market, but do they ever come up for sale there?