Sidebar Sidebar
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

palpatine said:
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/
Click to expand...

OCR is one of the main features I want. I might also be adding notes but really OCR is a must. So it seems my options are as they were before.

Staples is having a sale for students. Students get an extra 10% off purchases. (at least in my area) I'll probably get the All-in one I was talking about and perhaps acrobat pro.
 
About the software, does anybody know what's the significant differences between Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 vs Adobe Acrobat X Pro?

So the ScanSnap usually is bundled with Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 right?
Is it worth it to upgrade to Acrobat X Pro? They have a student price for $119. Or would I be fine with Acrobat Pro 8?

And if somebody can clarify also, what's exactly the main role of Adobe Acrobat in the ScanSnap workflow again? Acrobat doesn't do OCR, does it?
Is it just mainly used to combine multiple images/PDFs into a single PDF file?
 
adisquare said:
About the software, does anybody know what's the significant differences between Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 vs Adobe Acrobat X Pro?

So the ScanSnap usually is bundled with Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 right?
Is it worth it to upgrade to Acrobat X Pro? They have a student price for $119. Or would I be fine with Acrobat Pro 8?

And if somebody can clarify also, what's exactly the main role of Adobe Acrobat in the ScanSnap workflow again? Acrobat doesn't do OCR, does it?
Is it just mainly used to combine multiple images/PDFs into a single PDF file?
Click to expand...

Adobe Acrobat is bundled with the scan snap I'm not sure which version however. Acrobat does OCR. I assume it does a whole lot more then just taking multiple images a placing them into a single PDF as the software is expensive and cheaper alternatives can do more then just that.
 
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)

the adobe run features in scansnap are extremely limited. it is not a full version, and as i mentioned, you can only do ocr on scansnapped files. i have used adobe 8, 9, and 10. besides layout differences, i can't tell the changes. a combination of skim and scansnap would be an inexpensive and powerdul combination.
 
Breaking a Thick Hardcover Spine?

Does anybody know how to break the spine of a super-thick hardcover book?
(I'm talking about 1300 pages + Hardcover). The guy at Fedex said it's too thick for him to use the machine to cut through it.
So I was thinking, maybe is there a way I could take off just the Hardcover first, so it'd be easier to cut through the regular paper...?

Does anybody know how to do this without doing too much damage to the book? Or, maybe if you know any website(s) that has videos/pics on how to do this, please let me know... Thanks.

(Btw, I just got ScanSnap S1500M and so far so awesome! :) )
 
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)

congrats!

have an exacto knife handy and a paper cutter, like you might see at kinkos or in elementary school with the blade arm.

tear off front and back hardcovers. then, take about twenty pages and begin tearing them frim top to bottom. slowly. they should pull away easily. before you reach the end, flip the book and start from the bottom. this will keep the pages from ripping. occasionally you will use the knife to trim away excess spine or help if pages don't tear away easily. repeat process until done. trim pages to not only remove glue crud, but trim deep enough to make sure they get separated.

i said twenty at a time, but depending on the paper and binding quality you can do more or less. 1300 or 100, it's all the same. good luck!

*scissors or knife and cutting board can work in trimming stage, but paper cutting table device preferable.
 
1) I have used a handheld scanner, it was a $100 model last year. Viewpoint or something like that, it was really the only legitimate one I could find. It was absolutely awful for trying to scan books and I ended up returning it (it wasnt a bad product if you need it for what its made for I guess)

2) If you take your books to staples copy center, they will remove the cover with a knife ( though you can do that yourself) and cut the pages off the binding with a guiottine cutter for $2. After you're done copying, stables also offers cheap rebinding.

I'm not sure if competitors (officemax etc) offer the same services.
 
tgcken said:
1) I have used a handheld scanner, it was a $100 model last year. Viewpoint or something like that, it was really the only legitimate one I could find. It was absolutely awful for trying to scan books and I ended up returning it (it wasnt a bad product if you need it for what its made for I guess)

2) If you take your books to staples copy center, they will remove the cover with a knife ( though you can do that yourself) and cut the pages off the binding with a guiottine cutter for $2. After you're done copying, stables also offers cheap rebinding.

I'm not sure if competitors (officemax etc) offer the same services.
Click to expand...

great advice. thanks for contributing to the thread!
 
So I received my All in one printer last week and purchased Adobe acrobat x Pro as it seems to be the general consensus here.

If you seen some of my other threads you know that I've had issues with my printer and Acrobat. Everything works well on the printer side however Adobe doesn't recognize my scanner.

I've spent about 10hrs with tech support over the last few days. I came to the decision that I wanted a refund for Acrobat because it does not work like I want it to.

So now this is my setup
2010 macbook pro
HP Officejet 6500 a Plus
iPad 2 (I need to let the seller know asap if I'm buying)
Good Reader

I need the pdf software now. I want something that will do OCR, optimize the pdf size, ability to annotate, highlight add video/pictures/audio.

Ideally I want it to be free or if there is a cost involved I want to be able to try it out first and get tech support when things fo wrong.

My options are:
  • Neat works 79$
  • PDF Scanner 14$
  • Or scan with HP scan and process at school (I haven't checked to see if they have acrobat pro X) Free
 
OK, I've just read through this whole thread and it's been very informative. I'm looking to get my textbooks into my iPad so that I won't have to carry as many. I'm probably going to use the digital camera method as I have a DSLR that I can use. However, I'm still a little hazy on a few things. Once all the "scans" (in my case, photos) have been taken, won't you have a ton of JPEG files on your camera? How do you convert all those into one PDF file to be OCR'd?

Sorry if I missed something but I'm so confused...

edit: Wait a minute, I think I found it. I found an Automator action that's called "New PDF from Images" and it's described as "creating a single multi-page PDF document from a number of input images." I'm thinking of saving all my scanned images in one folder and running them through this. I'll try it either later tonight or tomorrow to see if it will work here.
 
Last edited:
boston04and07 said:
OK, I've just read through this whole thread and it's been very informative. I'm looking to get my textbooks into my iPad so that I won't have to carry as many. I'm probably going to use the digital camera method as I have a DSLR that I can use. However, I'm still a little hazy on a few things. Once all the "scans" (in my case, photos) have been taken, won't you have a ton of JPEG files on your camera? How do you convert all those into one PDF file to be OCR'd?

Sorry if I missed something but I'm so confused...

edit: Wait a minute, I think I found it. I found an Automator action that's called "New PDF from Images" and it's described as "creating a single multi-page PDF document from a number of input images." I'm thinking of saving all my scanned images in one folder and running them through this. I'll try it either later tonight or tomorrow to see if it will work here.
Click to expand...

Sounds like your on the right track, You'll probably need a PDF editor software. From there you can convert JPEG's to PDF and run OCR.
 
AppleDApp said:
Sounds like your on the right track, You'll probably need a PDF editor software. From there you can convert JPEG's to PDF and run OCR.
Click to expand...

I have Abbyy for OCR. Do you know if it also converts multiple JPEG's to a single long PDF file? I've only used it for OCR'ing files that are already in the PDF format. If not, I'm hoping that the Automator thing should work for the conversion part, and that Abbyy will take care of the OCR part after.

Also, I was curious about how you guys set up your cameras (for those of you who use them). I saw the tripod picture posted by the OP, but there wasn't any camera attached to it. Do you point the camera downwards and lay the book on the table, or do you somehow prop the book upright and point the camera like you normally would?
 
boston04and07 said:
I have Abbyy for OCR. Do you know if it also converts multiple JPEG's to a single long PDF file? I've only used it for OCR'ing files that are already in the PDF format. If not, I'm hoping that the Automator thing should work for the conversion part, and that Abbyy will take care of the OCR part after.

Also, I was curious about how you guys set up your cameras (for those of you who use them). I saw the tripod picture posted by the OP, but there wasn't any camera attached to it. Do you point the camera downwards and lay the book on the table, or do you somehow prop the book upright and point the camera like you normally would?
Click to expand...

Hi. I cannot speak to your first question, because I use Adobe Acrobat Pro (it does this). Regarding the second question, the camera is pointed down. The book lays on the table. You can photograph one page at a time, or two at a time. Flip the page, press the button, flip the page, press the button, and so on. It goes pretty quickly.

If you are OCD, you can set a delay of one second to prevent any possible movement, and you can use a pencil or clear ruler to hold down the pages if you want to keep your hairy, unsightly fingers out of the pictures.

If you are really into digitizing your stuff, there are more professional setups, and even dedicated stands or book cradles, but I have found this method to work well enough for my needs.
 
Ok I'm almost fully setup. I should be getting an iPad tomorrow. How do I sync my PDF's to the iPad?
 
AppleDApp said:
If I do it that way, I won't have enough space. I want my PDF's stored locally so I can access them all the time.
Click to expand...

The free Dropbox iPad app will store files locally if you tell it to. You just star the files you want to keep locally. You can also set how much space you want to allocate for this. It works quite well.

Also, GoodReader does something similar using your DropBox account.
 
AppleDApp said:
Ok I'm almost fully setup. I should be getting an iPad tomorrow. How do I sync my PDF's to the iPad?
Click to expand...

I've been using the UPAD app. When you connect your iPad to your computer, in iTunes under the app file sharing you can upload the PDFs you want to be transferred to the UPAD app. Then in UPAD you can organize them by folders.

It works pretty well, and you can highlight and write on the PDFs. You can also add typed text into the PDF document in the app, though I do wish this worked a little better.

I've been using this method to take notes for class. It works well, though sometimes it's annoying writing with your finger on the iPad, and trying to use a stylus is difficult since the tip causes too much friction on the screen to write quickly.

If it's a class that just requires writing down notes, then I'll use the Pages app, but if it's a class such as my Accounting class, I'll use UPAD to write within the PDF documents sent to us instead of having to print them and organize them, and I'll also use the Numbers app to keep track of spreadsheets.

My economics class is more difficult as I have to jot down graphs as well as written notes. Writing with a pen and paper would definitely be quicker for drawing graphs, but I've been using the UPAD method, because I want to have everything digitally.
 
EXTREMELY informative thread! Kudos to the OP!!
I made an attempt, at one time to do many of the methods described thus far in my attempts to go paperless, but found many of the ways of doing so to be either costly, meticulous or too time consuming. With school in full swing, I couldn't afford to waste precious time & fall behind as a result. I'm not sure if many are aware--and I definitely don't want to deter others from giving all that has already been described from giving it a try, but there are a number of websites that have already begin digitizing a large amount of textbooks. Once I found this out, I was hooked. Nominal expense, convenient & definitely less time consuming--if you choose to go that route. Either way, I still want to wish everyone the best of luck in their attempts at going paperless.
 
palpatine said:
I always choose 600 dpi myself. I have found anything lower than 300 dpi to affect the quality of the text. I am surprised to see you say 200 dpi is OK, but I will say that some people argue that lower dpi actually results in better ocr (optical character recognition) quality, so there may be something to that.
Click to expand...

I read an empirical study about the relationship between dpi and OCR results. The conclusion was that 400 dpi yields the best results. Higher or lower resolutions degrade the quality of the OCR. Methodology was basically scan the same sample documents at various resolutions, run OCR on them, and compare the results. OCR algorithms have mostly likely changed since that study was done because it has been a few years at least. Not sure if the conclusion would be different now.
 
M-5 said:
I've been using the UPAD app. When you connect your iPad to your computer, in iTunes under the app file sharing you can upload the PDFs you want to be transferred to the UPAD app. Then in UPAD you can organize them by folders.
Click to expand...
I've already purchased good reader will this have the ability to sync my PDF?

HERO XXL said:
EXTREMELY informative thread! Kudos to the OP!!
I made an attempt, at one time to do many of the methods described thus far in my attempts to go paperless, but found many of the ways of doing so to be either costly, meticulous or too time consuming. With school in full swing, I couldn't afford to waste precious time & fall behind as a result. I'm not sure if many are aware--and I definitely don't want to deter others from giving all that has already been described from giving it a try, but there are a number of websites that have already begin digitizing a large amount of textbooks. Once I found this out, I was hooked. Nominal expense, convenient & definitely less time consuming--if you choose to go that route. Either way, I still want to wish everyone the best of luck in their attempts at going paperless.
Click to expand...

Where do you get your digital textbooks? I'm looking for textbooks in french.
 
Hi,

Trying to use a scanner (HP ScanJet 7400C) in my university to scan books but need some advice. The options given are:

1) Colour pic
2) Grayscale pic
3) Black and white pic or text
4) Custom

The file formats it gives are:

BMP, JPG, TIF, GIF, FPX, PNG


I just want to ask the best settings to use so as I can then try and convert to PDF and get the scans OCR and then hopefully add them to my iPad. Having Colour is not really important.

Also what version of Adobe do I require to convert and OCR the scans?

Thx
 
Hi Everyone. Glad to see this thread has generated such a helpful discussion :)

DPI
In clearly-printed English-language texts, I have found 300 dpi to be sufficient; it is quite pleasant to read at that resolution and the OCR works fine. For lower quality texts (old books) or Asian languages (Chinese and Japanese), I prefer a higher dpi of around 600. I sometimes have access to fast office-quality scanners, so I bump up the dpi to 600 even when I don't need to. I figure the more the better! I have not done any formal tests to confirm if the OCR works better or not, but it is certainly better for reading.
redout said:
Hi,

COLOUR, GRAYSCALE, OR B+W?
It depends on what you want to get out of the text. Some texts need to be in color (slow), some are printed with absurdly narrow margins that make words get blacked out in the gap between pages (grayscale is good here), and some books lay flat and come out beautifully (B+W fast). It depends on what you are working with. In general, though, I do B+W. The files are perfectly legible, they are small, and the OCR works fine. One note of caution to iPad 1 owners: Grayscale and color scans sometimes cause PDFs to crash (incompatible elements and/or RAM issues), so you will need to optimize those files for earlier versions of Acrobat (no big deal, but you may want to keep a copy of the original file somewhere, because it will affect the quality of the scan).

FILE FORMATS
PDF is the best (in my opinion), but if a device doesn't have that, I'd probably go for JPG. It depends on what you are scanning. BMP files will be huge, but they will preserve photographs well. JPG files are compressed, so might not give clear pictures, but for words it is usually just fine, especially on a B+W setting. Test it out on your device, though, to ensure the best results.

CONVERSIONS
I recommend Adobe Acrobat Pro X, especially if you can get it with a student discount (check your university or order online). It has a huge number of features, but mainly I use it to combine files (especially if I used a digital camera or scanner with JPEG) into a PDF, insert an outline (makes viewing on the iPad very convenient), OCR (it also conveniently straightens up pages and flips them to the correct orientation), and optimization. I am sure there are other products out there, and sometimes a stripped down version with limitations is bundled with stuff (ScanSnap, for example), but I have found the full version worth the investment.

APPS
I am very intrigued by the potential of iAnnotate. However, because it doesn't sync with my backup service (Sugarsync), I have not switched to it, and I remain a GoodReader user. I am pretty pleased with it. What I do is dump all of my files into the iPad using GoodReader USB (OSX) or iTunes (I want to get reading right away). I put everything into a folder, and then I sync that folder to Sugarsync. The syncing process can take a while if you have a lot of files, but eventually everything will get synced up with Sugarsync and any other devices you have setup to sync with the folder. So, any annotations I put in a file will automatically appear in the files everywhere else. Sweet.

Obviously, the same process can be used with Dropbox. When my contract is up with Sugarsync, I will probably switch to Dropbox, because it is so well integrated with a lot of the apps I use.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back