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textbooks on iPad
- Thread starter AppleDApp
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I haven't found any textbooks here
I checked out your thread. My issues are I do not own a scanner and I was going to use the iPad as a cheaper and lighter way to get my textbooks. I don't want to have to buy the textbooks, scan them then transfer all the data to my iPad.
My last semester of school was very frustrating for this exact reason. I had purcased an iPad for the express purpose of downloading Ebooks from the NookStudy program that my school supported. I later discovered that NookStudy books need to be opened in a special NookStudy viewer that's only available on PC/MAC (no tablets). This was quite a let down but lucky for me, I own a ScanSnap automatic document scanner.
I did exactly what Palpatine mentioned. I bought the unbound versions of my books (the kind that are designed to be put in 3 ring binders) and loaded them up into my document scanner. It took about 3 hours to scan the whole 400+ pages into the system, but when it was done, I had a PDF of the book that I could easily put on my iPad and open in Goodreader. Best of all, the ScanSnap has an OCR program built in which means the final PDF was fully searchable and contained text that I could copy and paste if I needed to.
Is this an ideal solution? Hardly. I will say that having my entire course of books on my iPad was something that felt very futuristic. In just a few years we'll be seeing many more students with iPads and I'm sure that the eTextbook technology will catch up.
I did exactly what Palpatine mentioned. I bought the unbound versions of my books (the kind that are designed to be put in 3 ring binders) and loaded them up into my document scanner. It took about 3 hours to scan the whole 400+ pages into the system, but when it was done, I had a PDF of the book that I could easily put on my iPad and open in Goodreader. Best of all, the ScanSnap has an OCR program built in which means the final PDF was fully searchable and contained text that I could copy and paste if I needed to.
Is this an ideal solution? Hardly. I will say that having my entire course of books on my iPad was something that felt very futuristic. In just a few years we'll be seeing many more students with iPads and I'm sure that the eTextbook technology will catch up.
it's easy. i've scanned about 60 books and pamphlets this week so far. over the weekend i ought to finish at least another 20. the time investment is tiny, and now i have the books searchable, in my ipad, and accessible anywhere i go in the world.
etextbooks aren't here yet? i've brought them here already. come visit me in the future sometime
etextbooks aren't here yet? i've brought them here already. come visit me in the future sometime
it's easy. i've scanned about 60 books and pamphlets this week so far. over the weekend i ought to finish at least another 20. the time investment is tiny, and now i have the books searchable, in my ipad, and accessible anywhere i go in the world.
etextbooks aren't here yet? i've brought them here already. come visit me in the future sometime
for one scanning requires buying an iPad (500$) buying a scanner if you don't have one (200$) and buying your textbooks (800+$) You also have to invest quite a bit of time to scan all your books in order to get a PDF edition.
sure your paying to save weight but your also spending lots of time and money.
with etexbook offerings like inkling you get a fully interactive textbook with graphs and animation you can view full screen as well as video, web and social media integration. Hard to add that to the PDF version of your textbook.
i'd say you can get away with the cost of the digital camera if you do it right. put in a couple of hours now and your textbooks for the whole semester are ready to go. really, who doesn't have a couple of hours to spare?
1.
well, i am not sure why you are counting the iPad into the equation. obviously, you need some kind of digital platform to view your digital text. how about hp for 99? just kidding. everyone here ought to own an ipad by now
2.
the scanner is less than 200, but i am not sure i would recommend tearing apart books unless you have to. lots of people work in offices or schools with access to high quality scanners. but, if that is not an option, there is still the digital camera. that is also less than 200 and takes fabulous pictures (canon sd1400).
3.
if you borrow from the library and scan it is free, but violates copyright laws. if you buy textbooks, you can sell textbooks back, so it is not a total loss. i prefer to pay the authors for their work, so i try to buy as much as i can and scan those. it can cost anything from 0 to the full price of textbooks. it depends on what you want to do.
4.
inkling sounds cool. i have no complaints about companies designing fabulous, interactive textbooks. three problems, though. first, they are REALLY expensive. wow. second, they don't have any of the books i use. they seem to have an extremely small selection at the moment. third, i don't really care about interacting with social media--i just want to read my books. regular old graphs are just fine with me.
my point was that publishers have been slow to react with e-textbooks, but people should not give up. it is entirely possible at this very moment to rid your life of paper, get rid of the dead tree books, and go digital. i've done it. and, it is one of the best decisions i have made for my research. it isn't for everyone, and unfortunately it does require an initial time investment. think of it as an option that simply wasn't available only two years ago (ereaders, apps, etc. not there yet). it is definitely not more expensive than the current system with ebooks.
I considered getting a touchpad today I'll probably hold off, but getting a platform to read the textbooks from shouldn't become an added expense to the whole solution.i'd say you can get away with the cost of the digital camera if you do it right. put in a couple of hours now and your textbooks for the whole semester are ready to go. really, who doesn't have a couple of hours to spare?
1.
well, i am not sure why you are counting the iPad into the equation. obviously, you need some kind of digital platform to view your digital text. how about hp for 99? just kidding. everyone here ought to own an ipad by now
I could use a camera but then comes the issue of lighting and flash and what not.
That solution would cost less
I don't care for the social aspects of Inkling but the fact that you can enlarge graphs and incorporate videos is great It avoids having to have your computer next to you to do further reading. The books available from Inkling are significantly more expensive then I'd like them to be, also Selection is far from being available.
It is possible but I wouldn't say it is so practical from a short term perspective. You have to invest money for the tablet then textbooks and lots of time to scan all the textbooks. In the end however I'm sure it pays off.
digitizing a book is really no big deal. a camera + tripod + sunlight / decent lighting (flip a switch!) + a few minutes of your time. doing it with a camera is by far the fastest method. i cannot stress enough how easy it is to click a button and turn a page. it takes about as long as it takes you to turn pages.
obviously, i'd love to just buy the ebook, but for most books i want they don't even exist. and, for the precious few out there, they are outrageously expensive and/or poor quality (i could go on and on about the poor quality of maps supplied by some academic publisher). but, until then, doing it by camera is really a simple process.
inkling is great. no doubt. but, as long as you have to pay an arm and a leg for the extra stuff, i have no interest at all. i have somehow survived this long obtaining information via the written word, and i am sure i can manage somehow
obviously, i'd love to just buy the ebook, but for most books i want they don't even exist. and, for the precious few out there, they are outrageously expensive and/or poor quality (i could go on and on about the poor quality of maps supplied by some academic publisher). but, until then, doing it by camera is really a simple process.
inkling is great. no doubt. but, as long as you have to pay an arm and a leg for the extra stuff, i have no interest at all. i have somehow survived this long obtaining information via the written word, and i am sure i can manage somehow
kno.com and inkling.com are working with publishers to provide e-book versions of textbooks for the iPad.
Have you looked at those apps?
Have you looked at those apps?
Yes it has been mentioned in previous post. I'm looking for french textbooks. Please read the previous posts before replying.
Kno, Inkling, CourseSmart... none of these had any of the textbooks I needed this past semester. I was in the Army from 2005 until this past March, so it had been a while since I had been in school. I fully expected to be able to easily purchase all of my textbooks on my iPad. I could not believe it when I discovered that the publishers still haven't figured this out. It's just so frustrating. How can such stupid people become the leaders of these companies? This technology is here -- there shouldn't be anything to wait for!
Scanning real books into PDF isn't a real option either. I don't have a scanner and have no desire to get one. Besides, that's a hassle that I'm not willing to deal with. I don't rip DVD's or bluray's either. If something can't be easily purchased from iTunes (or streamed from Netflix/Hulu etc) then it doesn't get my money. This stuff should be easier!
Ugh, this makes me so mad.
I suppose. I stopped by the library this morning, scanned one of my books, did OCR on it, and put it on my iPad in under half an hour (I think it actually took 20, but I can't remember for sure). That's about the same amount of time it takes me to get ready in the morning, and I did all of the scanning while reading the news on my iPad (scanning is a fairly mindless task). Now I have the book with me all the time, I can search for any word inside of it, and I can annotate and highlight it.
If you can't spare a few minutes to scan the book, then I don't know what to say
I suppose. I stopped by the library this morning, scanned one of my books, did OCR on it, and put it on my iPad in under half an hour (I think it actually took 20, but I can't remember for sure). That's about the same amount of time it takes me to get ready in the morning, and I did all of the scanning while reading the news on my iPad (scanning is a fairly mindless task). Now I have the book with me all the time, I can search for any word inside of it, and I can annotate and highlight it.
If you can't spare a few minutes to scan the book, then I don't know what to say
I tried scanning some books but my big issues was the binding and Acrobat. I couldn't get acrobat to recognize my scanner and I don't like the shading created by the scanner in the corner of each page near the bind.
you'll get shading in the spine area sometimes. it depends on how tight the binding is, your scanner settings, and so forth.
a regular flatbed scanner (as opposed to one designed for office use or the "book scan scanning stations" in some libraries) is not recommended for a book. it takes a long time and the results are not as good.
you said you read my thread on digitizing books. i recommended two other methods there: scansnap and a camera. you can eliminate the shading problem this way.
in my opinion, the less than 200 dollar price is worth it for the scansnap and i have no qualms (anymore) about tearing apart brand new books and feeding it through the scanner. i think you'll find nothing but good reviews about it, and for many of us, it completely changes our lives and enables us to go completely paperless. in combination with evernote, i can access anything i own, anytime, anywhere. notes from a class i took four years ago? i can produce those with a single search. before scansnap, i would have spent hours searching through binders in boxes looking for it. nevermind the fact that i can be across the world in another country doing this as well.
anyhow, if it isn't for you, it isn't for you.
I suppose. I stopped by the library this morning, scanned one of my books, did OCR on it, and put it on my iPad in under half an hour (I think it actually took 20, but I can't remember for sure). That's about the same amount of time it takes me to get ready in the morning, and I did all of the scanning while reading the news on my iPad (scanning is a fairly mindless task). Now I have the book with me all the time, I can search for any word inside of it, and I can annotate and highlight it.
If you can't spare a few minutes to scan the book, then I don't know what to say
How do you remove the binding without the page tears being uneven? I don't tolerate things that are uneven. Where do you find unbound versions of your books? How do you know what settings to use with the scanner? How long did it take you to learn them? What the hell is OCR? Why do you know what that is?
You're speaking a foreign language to me. Acting like I'd be able to leisurely scan a book within 30 minutes is ridiculous, I wouldn't even know how to start. I'm a normal person, I don't know how to do any of this stuff, this isn't a simple process for me. I'm not willing to waste my time trying to figure it all out. Who knows how long that would take?
I want to simply pay money and have what I need on my iPad. I don't really care how much it costs. That's the type of convenience that the iPad is supposed to afford me.
i started out by reading and researching on the internet. i started at 0, just like you. anyhow, it's all there for you on the internet. it is also in threads i have started on this forum (see my profile).
if it is too much trouble, then don't do it. that's cool. i'm just trying to help.
unfortunately for all of us, nearly all of the books i want to read in digital form remain unavailable at any price. publishers don't care, or don't have the permission to produce them.