Going Paperless - Tech Advice - Kindle Fire

So i'm going to contribute to saving a few trees I'm thoroughly enjoying the Kindle fire. What an AMAZING little toy. I can't say enough about it, and HIGHLY recommend it to anyone on the fence about buying one.

Reading on the Fire is such a fantastic experience... I thought I would miss the physical feel of a book, and turning pages etc, but I absolutely don't. Now (as with all things I become enamored with), i've forging full ahead, and I want to digitize my current library. heheh. I know, I know.

My question is, does anyone know how I can easily do this??? I'm not keen on the idea of cutting off the binding on the books to then reglue them, but if I have to, so be it. I've heard of taking photos of each pages and then converting the photos, but I wonder about the quality in the end. Other than that, has anyone digitized their books with relative ease, and without purchasing any expensive gadgets/ software etc? I already have a scanner, and an open-source pdf program.

Any suggestions would be greatly welcomed.

Also, any ideas or tips on how you use your kindle with your regularly used books would be great. What are the best ways to make/keep notes and bookmarks? The highlight feature is great. Please share your ideas. I'd love to know. Thanks!

Digitizing a library. An interesting idea. Let me be practical for a moment. Have you used your scanner before to capture multiple paged documents? Give it a try if you have not. Even a speedy scanner anc software combination needs 60-300 seconds to complete the page and perform the optical character recognition and then you must proofread it. You can bypass the OCR if all you want are images of the pages but you won't be able to search or use hypertext apps. A 300 page tarot book, assuming verso and recto captured in one pass, and plenty of illustrations and a comprehensive index could take two days to grab, process, assemble, correct and arrange within the software.

Easier to buy the e-book versions.

Off the shelf product hacks less than $200:
http://hacknmod.com/hack/dirt-simple-book-to-e-book-scanner/

High speed text scanners can be hacked:

http://vimeo.com/4219953
http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-High-Speed-Book-Scanner-from-Trash-and-Cheap-C/
http://www.paperupgrade.org/blogs/workshop-building-high-speed-diy-book-scanner

And, of course, the service can be paid for:
http://www.merrittgraphics.com/landing/boundbook/?gclid=CP69vJbqp68CFWHDtgodHzvRaQ

Scanning a whole book is a BIG PAIN. I know this; I once did it. And I did it because I am hot stuff at scanning, OCR and pdfing. Even so....

I'd bite the bullet and buy the things pre-digitized.

Omnipage?

bogiesan said:

Digitizing a library. An interesting idea. Let me be practical for a moment. Have you used your scanner before to capture multiple paged documents? Give it a try if you have not. Even a speedy scanner anc software combination needs 60-300 seconds to complete the page and perform the optical character recognition and then you must proofread it. You can bypass the OCR if all you want are images of the pages but you won't be able to search or use hypertext apps. A 300 page tarot book, assuming verso and recto captured in one pass, and plenty of illustrations and a comprehensive index could take two days to grab, process, assemble, correct and arrange within the software.

Easier to buy the e-book versions.

Off the shelf product hacks less than $200:
http://hacknmod.com/hack/dirt-simple-book-to-e-book-scanner/

High speed text scanners can be hacked:

http://vimeo.com/4219953
http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-High-Speed-Book-Scanner-from-Trash-and-Cheap-C/
http://www.paperupgrade.org/blogs/workshop-building-high-speed-diy-book-scanner

And, of course, the service can be paid for:
http://www.merrittgraphics.com/landing/boundbook/?gclid=CP69vJbqp68CFWHDtgodHzvRaQ

Click to expand...

HOLY Cow Bogiesan! Thanks for the links, and the ideas. Just looking at those setups gave me bleeding ulcers! LOL. ok. i'm completeley not going to get high tech with it, so any high end page turners, and all that stuff is not going to be healthy for me I thought of buying the ebook versions, but that would be quite expensive to do... Have you heard of Omipage? From what I heard, it would allow text - editing functions from photos. This sounds like an easier alternative? Any thoughts?

gregory said:

Scanning a whole book is a BIG PAIN. I know this; I once did it. And I did it because I am hot stuff at scanning, OCR and pdfing. Even so....

I'd bite the bullet and buy the things pre-digitized.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback gregory! I'll PM my paypal account so you can make a donation to the cause

Seriously though, Did you use a scanner with an automatic document feeder when you scanned your books? With my scanner, I can put a stack of pages in, and walk away. When I come back I can just save the file as a pdf. So i was thinking that if I removed the binding, loaded the scanner, and came back whenever it was done, that shouldn't be too painful?

I really do want to try OCR, but don't have any experience with it. PLEASE let me pick your brain... Is there a cheaper alternative to Adobe for this? Have you tried doing it from images?

I think i'll try scanning only my most favourite books since you and Bogiesan seem to be saying the same thing ie. "are you nuts?" I'm just completely blown away by how much nicer it is to read the digital versus regular hard copy text.

Also, something I wasn't aware of is, no more futzing around with dog ears, notepapers, and trying to remember which margin your favourite note is written on. It's so much easier to search, bookmark, and FIND whatever text you are looking for. Not to mention much easier on the eyes to me. I also love the potential to be able to travel with all my books in such a compact form... very very appealing. I can't say enough about it. I remember several months back wondering what is all the fuss about these ereaders? I was already reading books on my computer anyway. But now I know!

with the exception of out of print books, it would be way easier, probably much cheaper - and the printing would be clearer - if you just bought e-book versions of your favorites.

I bought a Kindle Fire for my mom as a combo birthday xmas gift. We were not sure she would use it, she doesn't even have a cell phone or know how to program a VCR, and the only computer she used was at her job....but she does love to read and has been having trouble with her eyesight (macular degeneration)....so I thought that the kindle, with it's lit up screens and large font ability, would be good for her - and she LOVES IT! She is on her 4th book and plays Words With Friends (scrabble) with 4 or 5 people. I wouldn't say the kindle fire is perfect, though - but the tech support phone people have fixed any problems.

I want one too - but I know I will continue to read "real" books as well!

Scibility said:

HOLY Cow Bogiesan! Thanks for the links, and the ideas. Just looking at those setups gave me bleeding ulcers! LOL. ok. i'm completeley not going to get high tech with it, so any high end page turners, and all that stuff is not going to be healthy for me I thought of buying the ebook versions, but that would be quite expensive to do... Have you heard of Omipage? From what I heard, it would allow text - editing functions from photos. This sounds like an easier alternative? Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

I HAVE Omnipage (yes it does - you convert the photos to text, in effect) but I prefer Textbridge. The Windows OCR scanner isn't bad either (IT came with my XP machine, or maybe with my Office suite... - checks - yes, it is under Office Tools) - you have to save photos as black and white tifs and then run them through. But trust me, it takes ages; you are working one or at most two pages at a time, and even for a 100 page book that is 50 photos/scans.... - and THEN you only have to go through and correct all the mistakes and believe me, there will be LOADS.

The process goes like this. Put page in FLAT BED scanner (just flatten the book.) Camera not good. as not as flat. I know this. Trust me. Just don't. The words down the margin go weird. They probably do anyway.

Scan AS GREYSCALE (yes, a book is usually b/w. Your scanner assumes it is colour even so. Then you only have to change the mode afterwards...)

Rinse and repeat. (I never do more than 4 scans before saving, as they tend to lose themselves, but that may be my machine.)

Save all as TIF files if you want to use the MS Office scanner.

Then:

Open up your trusty OCR programme and open the relevant pages in whatever way it tells you to (import/view/open). Then you have to set each one to OCR individually. When you've done THAT, export the whole thing to your word processor. THEN - edit for all sorts - even line breaks sometimes. Certainly for spelling; any rare words it will kindly substitute something laughable for you. And don't assume that you will get the original page numbers etc. Well you will - but they won't necessarily be in the right place on the page....

I do have to do this quite often for documents we need here. I really wouldn't THINK about it for another whole book. I did one, once. NEVER again.

OCR does NOT give you the book as you see him. Plain image scans and putting the lot in a pdf would - but that would be one MASSIVE file, and I don't know if your machine could cope with pdfs anyway - I am told some do but not all. You'd effectively be reading photographs of each page. NO nonsense about zooming in and having the text adjust itself to fit; you'd have to scroll sideways with each line...

If you do this - well, I hope you have fewer than 50 books, and that you are retired and weren't planning to do anything else any time soon. Really.

I need to have a lie down now. I am exhausted just thinking about it. And I am EXPERIENCED in this stuff. I used to have to OCR a lot at work, too.

ETA Just saw that you plan to use an auto feeder. Does it flip the pages ? If not you WILL have to do it twice - and of course, you will wreck the books. Sure you will then have a pdf. See above re scrolling etc. You can edit that if you have a pdf editor - though you shouldn't need to, as they will just be images. I have never tried to run a pdf through an OCR programme, but it is still one page at a time stuff, as far as I know, and you would lose the pagination, I suspect, unless you have the patience to go through and change the paper size till it exactly fits, and check each page as some will always have fewer lines than others and you would need to add manual page breaks, and so on....

Omnipage does appear to do this all in one now - so good luck; it isn't exactly cheap....

I have been toying with the idea of an e-reader for awhile, but the one thing that has stopped me is that so many of the books I like aren't available yet. Also, paying 9.99 for an e-version when you can get the book itself for say, 12.99, just seems silly sometimes.

Still very tempting though!

Babalon Jones said:

I have been toying with the idea of an e-reader for awhile, but the one thing that has stopped me is that so many of the books I like aren't available yet. Also, paying 9.99 for an e-version when you can get the book itself for say, 12.99, just seems silly sometimes.

Still very tempting though!

Click to expand...

I have the Amazon kindle on my laptop and the app on my iPad. It was free to download so I thought I would try it. Firstly I went through all the free books available but then started to buy books. I'm an avid reader and I wouldn't go back to book reading now. It's so much more convenient having all my books in one place.

Try the free kindle and see if you like the idea, I have friends who hate the idea of not having a book in their hands or be able to turn pages but I'm a convert.

I have a Kindle that I received as a Yule present and I do enjoy taking it back and forth to work instead of lugging around some of the larger books. However, that being said, I could never imagine taking a book I have apart to scan it for use with my Kindle. I do buy books for the Kindle and am using the free books apps available, but I have far too many books dealing with Tarot, Witchcraft, Herbs, etc., to even contemplate taking them apart to scan. I like going to certain books and rummaging through them to do research, etc.

Going paperless, you can just buy the e-books for the Kindle and keep the ones you already have as they are. Just my two cents.