Good Scanner to Convert Physical Books into Digital Format

[TJCS]

Looking for a good scanner that can help convert my books into digital form.

I don't mind cutting up my old books, and I'm looking for these functionality:

• Clear/Quality Scans
• Auto-feed
• Double-sided scanning

Is there something out there that can do this efficiently for under $300?

 

[Steltek]

How many pages are you talking? Most scanners in your price range are going to do at most 25 pages at a time (or, maybe 50 if you are really lucky).

Several models of Fujitsu's Scansnap scanners do scan both sides of the page as the page feeds through, and can scan directly to PDF. Do be aware, though, that they often don't include TWAIN or ISIS drivers, so you can't use them for much other than bulk scanning. The S1500 is very nice, but it is about $137 over your budget from the cheapest source I could find. It does include a copy of Adobe Acrobat Standard, though, to allow you to manipulate and join your PDF documents.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

If you have a good digital camera and a tripod, give that a try before you spend your $.

 

[TJCS]

How many pages are you talking? Most scanners in your price range are going to do at most 25 pages at a time (or, maybe 50 if you are really lucky).

Several models of Fujitsu's Scansnap scanners do scan both sides of the page as the page feeds through, and can scan directly to PDF. Do be aware, though, that they often don't include TWAIN or ISIS drivers, so you can't use them for much other than bulk scanning. The S1500 is very nice, but it is about $137 over your budget from the cheapest source I could find. It does include a copy of Adobe Acrobat Standard, though, to allow you to manipulate and join your PDF documents.

I was thinking of converting a few books, so it may be around 1000 to 2000 pages? I may be moving to another country to work soon, so it would be awesome if I can fit my books/notes into a tablet or something.

Sound impractical? Any other ideas welcome.

@CharlesKozierok

Thanks for the advice but I don't think i am going to take 1000 snapshops... :whiste:

 

[TJCS]

Also looked on amazon to see if there are digital copies available... no luck : /

 

[Steltek]

I was thinking of converting a few books, so it may be around 1000 to 2000 pages? I may be moving to another country to work soon, so it would be awesome if I can fit my books/notes into a tablet or something.

Sound impractical? Any other ideas welcome.

@CharlesKozierok

Thanks for the advice but I don't think i am going to take 1000 snapshops... :whiste:

Well, it depends upon your definition of impractical. Do you mean 500 to 1000 duplex pages (for a total of 1000 to 2000 actual pages), or 1000-2000 duplex pages (i.e. which would result in 2000-4000 actual pages total)? If you are talking bound books, you'd have to have a way to cleanly cut them apart (something that really isn't easy if you've never tried it before) from the bindings into same-sized stacks of single pages so they'll feed cleanly through a document feeder. You'll then have to separate each book into equal stacks of ordered pages small enough to feed through the document feeder of your scanner.

At 25 duplex pages at a scan, you'd be scanning the equivalent of 50 book pages at a time. Assuming no misfeeds (something just not very likely to occur working with cut apart books), you'd have to do at least 40 separate scans to scan 2000 physical pages. Of course, then you'd have to assemble them into digital files.

It is certainly doable, if you want to invest the time and are willing to sacrifice your original books. The harder question is what electronic format to use? By far, the simplest method would be to scan them to PDF documents. You would then have PDF images of the pages which can be joined into single documents representing each book. Keep in mind that this would only get you images of the pages, not searchable text. You could subsequently do OCR on the scanned PDF documents, but there is no guarantee how that would turn out (and, if the pages contain a lot of pictures, it won't work near as well as it would for just text-only pages).

If you have a local Fedex Office location (i.e. what used to be Kinkos years ago) with rental scan stations, this might let you see how well it would work on a single book without investing in the hardware. They might also have a large paper cutter capable of cutting the bindings off of a book if you ask. Worth looking into, anyway.

 

[TJCS]

I could totally see myself messing up trying to remove the book binding. It's good to know the covets to OCR, and I also heard there are variations in results depending on the software used.

I think I will stop by fedex/kinkos and see what they can do for me, but if I remember correctly I think they don't allow copy of books.

 

[Steltek]

I could totally see myself messing up trying to remove the book binding. It's good to know the covets to OCR, and I also heard there are variations in results depending on the software used.

I think I will stop by fedex/kinkos and see what they can do for me, but if I remember correctly I think they don't allow copy of books.

I think that they (back when they were Kinkos) actually got sued over it once a long time ago.

However, they might still have equipment that you can use to cut the book out of the binding. Also, they may not copy it for you, but if they have a rental scan station they may not care what you copy there so long as their employees aren't involved.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Have you checked whether or not Amazon carries the books in Kindle format, or Apple has them as ibooks?

 

[bryanl]

Check scan speeds for resolutions of 150-300 dots/inch since higher resolutions aren't important for scanning books, except art and photography books.

There are 2 types of optical sensors used in scanners, CCD and CIS, and I greatly prefer CCD for books since it's greater depth of field is much more tolerant of pages that won't lie flat against the glass. CCD will give legible scans even where the page sticks up 10mm, such as near the book spine, but CIS makes them look fuzzy where they stick up even 1mm. Here's a demonstration of the effects of depth of field with CIS vs. CCD: http://www.carlmcmillan.com/dof/depthoffield.htm

People who use scanners for photography of small objects always use CCD for that reason.

 

[piasabird]

The right answer is it is illegal to copy books.

I like fujitsu scanners for sheet feeding. They can handle 30 pages or maybe more at a time and dont jam very easily as long as the paper stays between the guides.

I dont know an easy way to cut up a book for scanning.

I just can not see destroying books.

300 dpi should be about right. A lot depends on the size and the quality of the pinted text. Not all text is of good quality.

I scan documents all day long from letters to faxes to tax forms to hand written forms to Transcripts.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

Thanks for the advice but I don't think i am going to take 1000 snapshops... :whiste:

I've done this before. As long as the books are separated into pages, once you get the camera and tripod set up, it's a lot faster than you think.

 

[tynopik]

you can scan a normal book on a regular flatbed in a surprisingly short period of time

with a good scanner you should be able to do 10+ pages (5 double sided pages) a minute. 2000 pages should easily be doable in less than 4 hours.

the software makes all the difference, make sure to use something like Abbyy Finereader that supports automated scanning with a configurable delay so all you have to do is flip pages.

if you want to try the camera-on-a-stand route: http://diybookscanner.org/

oh yeah: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=612

 

[xSauronx]

I could totally see myself messing up trying to remove the book binding. It's good to know the covets to OCR, and I also heard there are variations in results depending on the software used.

I think I will stop by fedex/kinkos and see what they can do for me, but if I remember correctly I think they don't allow copy of books.

if there is a printer in town they may have something that can clamp and cut the book like a stack of pages, which should cleanly remove the binding.

i have a documate 152, 250_ shipping, but shop around, maybe you can get a better price or find free shipping or something.

http://www.amazon.com/Xerox-XDM1505D...s=documate+152

ive scanned a couple of textbooks with it. it works, but youre going to spend some time continuously feeding it. came with all the software i needed to scan to ocr/pdf/whatever and its pretty compact so it doesnt need much space.

keep in mind AFTER scanning running OCR on the docs and outputting them to something will take some processing power, so its not lightning fast. im happy with that model for what i have done with it, however. i havent bothered to get the binding cut off any book, but a few ive had that were spiral bound i dropped right in that guy and was happy to throw the pages away when i was done

 

[Steltek]

if there is a printer in town they may have something that can clamp and cut the book like a stack of pages, which should cleanly remove the binding.

i have a documate 152, 250_ shipping, but shop around, maybe you can get a better price or find free shipping or something.

http://www.amazon.com/Xerox-XDM1505D...s=documate+152

ive scanned a couple of textbooks with it. it works, but youre going to spend some time continuously feeding it. came with all the software i needed to scan to ocr/pdf/whatever and its pretty compact so it doesnt need much space.

keep in mind AFTER scanning running OCR on the docs and outputting them to something will take some processing power, so its not lightning fast. im happy with that model for what i have done with it, however. i havent bothered to get the binding cut off any book, but a few ive had that were spiral bound i dropped right in that guy and was happy to throw the pages away when i was done

Do you have problems with the pages not feeding exactly straight on your Documate? I have the Documate 162 and the page feed system isn't nearly as good as what the Fuji scanners use. I've noticed that this sometimes effects the accuracy of OCR (depending upon the font) unless the pages are de-skewed first.

 

[TJCS]

I think that they (back when they were Kinkos) actually got sued over it once a long time ago.

However, they might still have equipment that you can use to cut the book out of the binding. Also, they may not copy it for you, but if they have a rental scan station they may not care what you copy there so long as their employees aren't involved.

I will definitely talk my local fedex guy. I also have some personal notes I would like to convert, and I think he can definitely help me with those.

Check scan speeds for resolutions of 150-300 dots/inch since higher resolutions aren't important for scanning books, except art and photography books.

There are 2 types of optical sensors used in scanners, CCD and CIS, and I greatly prefer CCD for books since it's greater depth of field is much more tolerant of pages that won't lie flat against the glass. CCD will give legible scans even where the page sticks up 10mm, such as near the book spine, but CIS makes them look fuzzy where they stick up even 1mm. Here's a demonstration of the effects of depth of field with CIS vs. CCD: http://www.carlmcmillan.com/dof/depthoffield.htm

People who use scanners for photography of small objects always use CCD for that reason.

Thanks for explaining the differences between settings and sensor types. Very useful for a total newb like me. Is there a consumer scanner that uses CCD-sensor you recommend?

The right answer is it is illegal to copy books.

These notes are for me and me only, so if I do it at home no one will ever know

I've done this before. As long as the books are separated into pages, once you get the camera and tripod set up, it's a lot faster than you think.

I might consider it if I end up doing selected pages.

 

[TJCS]

you can scan a normal book on a regular flatbed in a surprisingly short period of time

with a good scanner you should be able to do 10+ pages (5 double sided pages) a minute. 2000 pages should easily be doable in less than 4 hours.

the software makes all the difference, make sure to use something like Abbyy Finereader that supports automated scanning with a configurable delay so all you have to do is flip pages.

if you want to try the camera-on-a-stand route: http://diybookscanner.org/

oh yeah: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=612

Aquaman was the first thing that pop-in my head when I thought about doing this ^_^

if there is a printer in town they may have something that can clamp and cut the book like a stack of pages, which should cleanly remove the binding.

i have a documate 152, 250_ shipping, but shop around, maybe you can get a better price or find free shipping or something.

http://www.amazon.com/Xerox-XDM1505D...s=documate+152

ive scanned a couple of textbooks with it. it works, but youre going to spend some time continuously feeding it. came with all the software i needed to scan to ocr/pdf/whatever and its pretty compact so it doesnt need much space.

keep in mind AFTER scanning running OCR on the docs and outputting them to something will take some processing power, so its not lightning fast. im happy with that model for what i have done with it, however. i havent bothered to get the binding cut off any book, but a few ive had that were spiral bound i dropped right in that guy and was happy to throw the pages away when i was done

Sounds awesome. About half of the books I want to scan are old textbooks that I don't want to throw away from years ago. Sound like it was very workable for you. Got to head out soon, but I will look into that documate later this afternoon.

 

[tynopik]

I would be very careful about OCR

Be sure to save an image file so any questionable areas/errors can be checked

If nothing else, a 1-bit multi-page tiff (ccit type 4 i think) will help while being fairly compact.

Also the latest version of finereader produces a decent searchable-image pdf that is fairly compact

 

[mfenn]

The right answer is it is illegal to copy books.

I call BS on this. Sure, it is illegal to copy books and redistribute them without a license. However, it is perfectly legal to digitize a book for your own personal use.

 

[mfenn]

@CharlesKozierok

Thanks for the advice but I don't think i am going to take 1000 snapshops... :whiste:

It actually goes really fast with the proper setup. All you really need is:

- A tripod (or any similarly stable mount)
- A way to clamp the book into place so that it doesn't shift when you turn the pages
- A good floodlight
- (Bonus) a remote shutter release

If you have all those things, it's a matter of press shutter, turn page, press shutter, turn page, etc. You could do 30-40 pages a minute that way. The whole project would be done in less than an hour (for 1000 pages).