actually, photographs are fastest. i just don't think they come out quite as well. i use adobe acrobat pro for ocr. if you have scansnap, ocr should come with it (it uses adobe as well, but the ocr only works on stuff you scan using scansnap, so it is a limited version contained within scansnap).
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Going from Paper to iPad: How to Digitize Stuff
- Thread starter palpatine
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
actually, photographs are fastest. i just don't think they come out quite as well. i use adobe acrobat pro for ocr. if you have scansnap, ocr should come with it (it uses adobe as well, but the ocr only works on stuff you scan using scansnap, so it is a limited version contained within scansnap).
I find it very difficult to believe photographs will beat a ScanSnap for speed.
The ScanSnap scans 18 double sided pages per minute - does auto correction, auto levelling etc, then saves directly as a pdf.
You risk getting reflections on your paper with that setup, as your lights seem to be a bit close to your camera. Google for 'Family of Angles' - this is a studio lighting concept whereby you can place lights outside of the reflective angles picked up by your camera, for more even lighting.
The concept is detailed in the fantastic photographic lighting bible 'Light, Science and Magic'.
johnnyturbouk
macrumors 68000
I will be scanning a few text books in the subsequent weeks - largest book is almost 2000 pages - good ol' millers anaesthesia.. I have to say - i, personally love adobe acrobat proX and good reader combo - cant get enough of these 2 apps.
I wish i could drop my books off somewhere who could then scan the text for me and e-mail me the pdfs... make my life so much easier
I wish i could drop my books off somewhere who could then scan the text for me and e-mail me the pdfs... make my life so much easier
photographs take as long as it takes to turn a page, and you take two pages at once, so it's pretty quick. i was also comparing it to the fujitsu scansnap s300, which definitely doesn't do 18 ppm. as for the post processing, i would think adobe acrobat pro does that at about the same speed (i believe they both use adobe).
i don't know about the lighting. i was talking about the tripod setup mainly. i usually just pick a sunlit location. thanks for the link, though. it would be great to do it with proper lighting.
The concept is detailed in the fantastic photographic lighting bible 'Light, Science and Magic'.[/QUOTE]
Ok so I've decided to give it a go I'll try scanning a few pages and see the result but first I'd like to know other software options. Also if you could post in my scanner issue thread to help get my scanner going that would be great.
I can't wait to see the outcome if all works well I'll try and go paperless.
I can't wait to see the outcome if all works well I'll try and go paperless.
I ran across this article from Ted Landau (Senior Contributor for Macworld, etc) trying to compare NeatDesk for Mac and ScanSnap S1500M.
The Neat company basically does not only make the hardware scanners, but they also developed a software capable of doing OCR and some file management. The software is called NeatWorks ($80)—come bundled with scanner and also sold separately from hardware.
According to Landau, hardware-wise, he prefers the ScanSnap S1500M, but the software-wise, NeatWorks is better. So to have the best of both world (and if you have some extra cash), he recommends getting the ScanSnap (and you'll get Adobe Acrobat Pro for free anyways) and the NeatWorks.
Read the article yourself here. (Dated back to May 2009).
To check out NeatWorks for Mac, click here.
----------
That's some thick texts you've got!
Anyway, our campus has a copy center that basically refuse to do service of scanning textbooks (although I was told that the service may be available to Disability Resource Center students)—copyrighted materials issue.
Then I tried asking FedEx Office (used to be called Kinkos), they said they would do digitizing (although I didn't really mention about textbook, but the staff saw me holding a 1000-page textbook), but with the cost of $1/page.
That would be $1000 just for one textbook.
I've also looked into a couple different online service that will do this particular service for you. But they are still expensive if you consider about doing it quite frequently in the future as well.
So, I think it's much cheaper if you actually invest on a really good scanner like the ScanSnap S1500M (for Mac) for about $400 and you can always use it for future texts as well.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)
i travel a lot, so i need portability. but, if i didn't, i'd definitely spring for one of the larger scansnap models that can do 20 ppm or more. i know i'll be sxanning papers, handouts, and books for many more yeara to come, so i think it is a good investment.
i travel a lot, so i need portability. but, if i didn't, i'd definitely spring for one of the larger scansnap models that can do 20 ppm or more. i know i'll be sxanning papers, handouts, and books for many more yeara to come, so i think it is a good investment.
Neat works seems like a good software. Thanks for the article.
Do you scan things like bank statements and bills?
Last edited:
I scan everything that I would normally file. Grocery store receipts get thrown away, bank statements are delivered electronically (so no need to scan), but other important paper work (lawyers, contracts, etc.) all go through the scanner and then into the trash. My goal is to go 100% paperless at some point. It will take a while to finish everything, but I am well on my way. I can't count how many trashbags of notes (along with their binders), receipts, and other detritus that I have gotten rid of. All I know is that moving next time will be a lot more pleasant
I scan everything that I would normally file. Grocery store receipts get thrown away, bank statements are delivered electronically (so no need to scan), but other important paper work (lawyers, contracts, etc.) all go through the scanner and then into the trash. My goal is to go 100% paperless at some point. It will take a while to finish everything, but I am well on my way. I can't count how many trashbags of notes (along with their binders), receipts, and other detritus that I have gotten rid of. All I know is that moving next time will be a lot more pleasant
How long have you been working on going paperless? How do you organize everything (bills,contracts etc) How much space does this all take do you have off site backup in the event of a disaster?
I've looked at a possible setup to digitizing everything I'd like your input.
I'd get the HP Officejet 6500A Plus e-All-in-One Printer - E710n for scanning (I also need a printer and I am limited in space) Then either the 16gb or 32gb Wifi only iPad to hold all my textbooks, iTunes U, Calendar, school related apps.
Is there a cheaper alternative for Adobe Acrobat pro?
I might add data to my current cellphone plan in case I need to tether. What do you think?
Last edited:
I've been working on it in earnest for the last year and a half. As a researcher I have gathered a small library worth of journal articles, books, and other materials, so it is a slow process. I had stuff in two countries. I've gotten rid of everything in one (several bookcases worth). I am working on the second. See the threads started by me (my name-->statistics-->threads started) to see how I organize it all. I am thinking about modifying that system by getting rid of the folders. This was suggested by people on this forum. In total (depending on how you calculate it) my main data takes up a little less than 1TB (more if you want to count versions of files, copies, and so forth). I have several 1TB hard drives (same information on several drives). The key (in my opinion) is to keep your data in at least two physical locations. In addition, I have about 60GB of my most important data backed up to Sugarsync in the cloud. It is a little tedious to keep all of the backups up to date, but not so bad, considering how valuable it is. If my house burned down tomorrow, I could pick up and get to work again the next day without losing anything, so that helps me to sleep well at night.
I wish I knew more about all in one printers. I don't understand if the device allows you to feed paper into it for scanning. If it doesn't, then it is rather useless for digitizing books and so forth. The 16 and 32 iPad sound fine to me. I personally wouldn't get a data plan, and definitely think wifi is the way to go, but that is at least partly because I don't like getting fleeced by the carriers.
I am sure there are, but I don't know them. If you can get a student discount it is really quite inexpensive.
It depends on what plan you can get. In my case, I have spent a year with a wifi hotspot. I really think that is a great way to go. I moved and had to give that up a few days ago, so I will probably rely on university and home networks. I'd like to tether, or to have a wifi hotspot, but I am very disappointed with the options available where I am.
Nice to see you have a full backup solution I should really do that but I wouldn't be confortable setting up a server at someone else's house.
That scanner has a 35 pages ADF so I will by able to scan loose sheets. However for my textbooks that have a binding I will have to scan each page one by one. My concern is as follow. If I scan the book in one sense when I scan the following page the text will be the opposite direction how would I correct this? Also how will Acrobat Pro know when I'm done scanning a book and starting another?
I also looked at student pricing for Acrobat pro the discount isn't much.
External drives are really cheap these days. Can't you encrypt your backups (Lion does full disk encryption) and leave a drive at your parents house, or even hidden under a seat in your car?
PDF supports the concept of left and right pages - although they're not particularly useful in a scanned document. You can also rotate pages.
If you want to finish scanning, I assume you close that PDF file and open another for the next book.
I haven't tried this, but it's cheap, has good reviews and looks like it does scanning and OCR to PDF:
PDFScanner (app store)
exactly. i don't have several servers. i have several external drives. parent's houses, offices, and other places make good locations.
yes. and, adobe pro flips and rotates pages during the ocr process, so there really isn't any extra work to do. it's quite nice. scanning a book one page at a time sounds painful...
As for the price of PDF pro, it is only about 70 through my university. That seems pretty inexpensive to me.
I suppose I could encrypt the drives and everything but the simplest solution would be to backup to an external HDD and then put the drive in a fire proof safe.
I guess I'll have to rotate every page for everything to align correctly that will be tedious.
The app you suggested looks great I'll give it a go.
For the time being I won't purchase anything to start digitizing as I have to pay off schooling but I should get that started in the coming months.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)
you could rotate it manually, but pro will do it for you, so that would be the most painless solution. chances are that your university will have pro available on a machine somewhere (our media lab does) and a cheap method would be to just stop in there every few days to process data.
you could rotate it manually, but pro will do it for you, so that would be the most painless solution. chances are that your university will have pro available on a machine somewhere (our media lab does) and a cheap method would be to just stop in there every few days to process data.
That would be sketchy spending all day scanning textbooks. I won't raise any concerns that way
Fire proof safes are expensive or rubbish.
They're designed for paper. Electronics will bake at a much lower temperature and a small safe won't provide much protection.
I use an external caddy-less drive dock and bare hard drives for backups (really cheap and const effective). Weibetech make some good plastic library cases for bare hard drives.
At the price 1TB drives are these days, it's no problem to have a few backups in various places.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)
scan stuff at home. process the files in a computer lab. this is what i meant. this would be the least expensive software solution.
scan stuff at home. process the files in a computer lab. this is what i meant. this would be the least expensive software solution.
OK I'll probably get the app store app its more convenient and cheaper then Acrobat.
Hey for scanning bound books what about using one of those handheld scanners? Has anyone tried one of those?
Try Skim. It's free. No OCR, but one of my colleagues has been using it a long time and prefers it to Adobe Pro.
http://skim-app.sourceforge.net/
No. That sounds like a nightmare. I have used early versions of this tech (years ago). Good luck!
In my experience, you will be better off copying a book onto paper (VERY inexpensive at Kinkos), taking those pages home, and running them through something like ScanSnap (something you can feed the pages into). And, yes. I have actually done this with very good results. A sad waste of paper, but you can make yourself feel better by using the backside of the paper for notes/scratch-paper later
No. That sounds like a nightmare. I have used early versions of this tech (years ago). Good luck!
In my experience, you will be better off copying a book onto paper (VERY inexpensive at Kinkos), taking those pages home, and running them through something like ScanSnap (something you can feed the pages into). And, yes. I have actually done this with very good results. A sad waste of paper, but you can make yourself feel better by using the backside of the paper for notes/scratch-paper later
I've never used one of those handheld scanners before and didn't know about the quality. I was just thinking about an alternative to using a flatbed scanner. I have numerous books I would like to digitize, but I'm not willing to destroy the book to do so. In the past I've used the professional copy/scanner at the my office, but was just curious about other options. It sounds like you would advocate taking pictures though. I may have missed it, but did you say what kind of camera you used for your pics? And, about the Kinko's thing, I would assume that they would not copy books due to copyright?
I've had great luck with Canon phones. This is the one I use.
http://usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/cameras/digital_cameras/powershot_sd1400_is
Professionals might recommend different stuff, like an slr, but i had neither the funds nor the interest in lugging around a big camera. the key, in my experience, is stability (the tripod), and lighting (i rely on sunlit rooms, but you'll probably do even better with a relatively small investment of time and money in the proper lighting equipment--i am just lazy).
at kinkos you would be copying the book. they won't do it for you (as far as i know). copyright is a grey area when it is a book you own. it is my understanding that it is legal for you to make reproductions for your own use of something you purchased (in the same way you might burn a cd), but the laws are open to interpretation, and the courts have not worked this out yet (as far as i know).