[extropy-chat] finding old (and new) sf

[David Lubkin]

Joseph Bloch wrote:

>Oooh... that sounds nice. How's it work on paperback books?
>
>I'm imagining you dismember the books into single pages and feed it in.

I haven't tried it on paperbacks yet, but I don't expect they'd present a 
problem.

Some considerations for this or any ADF scanner without a flatbed --

If the document feeder isn't going to be able to separate the pages because 
of their weight, or because they are slightly crumpled, or because they 
stick together (from humidity or staple holes), you have to feed the sheets 
one at a time. With a little practice, you can place each sheet at just the 
right time in the cycle to be included in the current pdf file. In Acrobat, 
you can trivially Create Document from Multiple Files to aggregate however 
many pdf files you ended up with.

I've found that for newspaper clippings to appear as black on white, one 
needs to adjust the brightness and contrast, because of the non-whiteness 
of the paper. My guess is that a paperback would require the same 
adjustment, for the same reason.

For any scanner, if you want the text recognized instead of just scanned as 
an image, you'll need to play with the settings to get the best results, 
allow a lot of time for the OCR phase, and be prepared to check and correct 
the text. (I don't bother with OCR for 95% of what I scan.)

I've also started scanning journals and magazines. Removing staples or 
perfect binding is annoying. I looked into a paper cutter that could handle 
a few hundred sheets at a time. They're rather expensive. But my local 
OfficeMax will cut a stack of 500 sheets for a dollar, and I can just drop 
off a box of journals for them to cut.

Before scanning periodicals, check if you can already get them on-line. 
Some magazines (like The Economist) and professional associations (like 
ACM) provide a free, complete, pdf archive on their web sites for subscribers.

For oversized scanning, like a full sheet from a newspaper, you'll want to 
use software that can stitch together the pieces into one image.


-- David Lubkin.