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Document Scanners
I am considering scanning all of my files into PDF.
All my survey filed notes are in traditional, bound survey note books.
I do not have any of the typical flat file Mylars, velum, linens, tracings, nor prints.
If I could not fold it, it got tossed.
I will appreciate opinions from those who have tried and failed, or tried and succeeded, this conversion.
And also, which scanners to use or not use.
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10 Replies
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For the field books I think you’ll need a flatbed scanner and a lot of time. I’m sure someone like Google has an automated bound-book feeder, but I’ve never seen one and I expect such a thing would be very expensive.
For regular letter and legal size documents, i can recommend the Fujitsu ScanSnap ix500. So far I’ve run about 27,000 pages through mine. The only problem I’ve had is when I miss a staple or paper clip – those will jam it every time. Clearing the jam is easy, though, so it’s just a minor nuisance.
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The large sheet scanners I’ve used worked with flat files that were rolled drawing out and folded media was a PITA
The folded media had to be rolled and stood in place while the product material were trained to hold a straight end that the scanner would accept and load for a scan.
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For the field books I just take a picture of it with my phone and download that. It’s much faster than trying to scan each page
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There are many book scanners out on the market right now, but most are ridiculously expensive. If you are a do it yourselfer, there is an open-sourced book scanner that you can build: http://www.diybookscanner.org/
Basically, all it is, are two cheap digital cameras attached to a glass top, with an angled bed, so that everytime the glass goes down over the book, the cameras fire and take a photo of each page. The operator just turns the pages. You could also rig up something less fancy, using the same concept.
That said, over the last couple of years, I oversaw the scanning of about 130 years of regular bound field books. We used a flat bed scanner (up to 11×17), with two book pages on every image. Buying a book scanner was too expensive for us, and we wouldn’t have much use for it after it was all done. Our method worked fine. The scanning software we had was able to put each book into one continuous .pdf, which meant we didn’t have to monkey with the images too much. I would suggest working with your software settings to make sure that the images come out of the scanner as close to how you want them the first time (rotated, sized to fit, etc.), since this will save you so much time from having to edit the images. I had a couple of college kids that did most of the scanning for me, and they did a good job. The really old and/or fragile ones were done by my field crew whenever they had a little down time.
If I had to do it by myself, I would probably attempt to build a DIY version.
Since field books fold back relatively flat, and are all roughly the same size, you could probably just put a decent digital camera on a tripod and (using a heavy piece of glass to keep the book flat), take the photos that way (with two pages per image). In fact, now that I think about it, that might work as well or better, for field books, as the fancy DIY book scanner. Without too much screwing around, you could probably make a flat bed for the book, attached to the glass with a hinge. The bed could have an upside down L-shaped mount on it for the camera, would give you a reference frame to keep the pages in the same place on every image. A couple of rubber bands to keep the book attached to the bed would make flipping pages easier. Since the books are relatively small, there wouldn’t be too much distortion in the images.
Anyway, sorry for the brain dump. Guess I still had some ideas floating around in my head from our recent project. Good luck!
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Paul, post: 349974, member: 624 wrote: There are many book scanners out on the market right now, but most are ridiculously expensive. If you are a do it yourselfer, there is an open-sourced book scanner that you can build: http://www.diybookscanner.org/
Basically, all it is, are two cheap digital cameras attached to a glass top, with an angled bed, so that everytime the glass goes down over the book, the cameras fire and take a photo of each page. The operator just turns the pages. You could also rig up something less fancy, using the same concept.
That said, over the last couple of years, I oversaw the scanning of about 130 years of regular bound field books. We used a flat bed scanner (up to 11×17), with two book pages on every image. Buying a book scanner was too expensive for us, and we wouldn’t have much use for it after it was all done. Our method worked fine. The scanning software we had was able to put each book into one continuous .pdf, which meant we didn’t have to monkey with the images too much. I would suggest working with your software settings to make sure that the images come out of the scanner as close to how you want them the first time (rotated, sized to fit, etc.), since this will save you so much time from having to edit the images. I had a couple of college kids that did most of the scanning for me, and they did a good job. The really old and/or fragile ones were done by my field crew whenever they had a little down time.
If I had to do it by myself, I would probably attempt to build a DIY version.
Since field books fold back relatively flat, and are all roughly the same size, you could probably just put a decent digital camera on a tripod and (using a heavy piece of glass to keep the book flat), take the photos that way (with two pages per image). In fact, now that I think about it, that might work as well or better, for field books, as the fancy DIY book scanner. Without too much screwing around, you could probably make a flat bed for the book, attached to the glass with a hinge. The bed could have an upside down L-shaped mount on it for the camera, would give you a reference frame to keep the pages in the same place on every image. A couple of rubber bands to keep the book attached to the bed would make flipping pages easier. Since the books are relatively small, there wouldn’t be too much distortion in the images.
Anyway, sorry for the brain dump. Guess I still had some ideas floating around in my head from our recent project. Good luck!
Seems like glass on top of an item being photographed would introduce undesireable reflections…
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Doesn’t seem to. All of the book scanners I’ve seen use some sort of glass cover to keep the pages flat. I think it depends on the angle of the lighting, the glass, and making sure to turn off the flash.
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Jim Frame, post: 349909, member: 10 wrote: For the field books I think you’ll need a flatbed scanner and a lot of time. I’m sure someone like Google has an automated bound-book feeder, but I’ve never seen one and I expect such a thing would be very expensive.
For regular letter and legal size documents, i can recommend the Fujitsu ScanSnap ix500. So far I’ve run about 27,000 pages through mine. The only problem I’ve had is when I miss a staple or paper clip – those will jam it every time. Clearing the jam is easy, though, so it’s just a minor nuisance.
After reading some reviews i’ve bought one myself and find it already indispensable. I scan everything with it : receipts, documents, archiving. I scan everything in evernote (searchable pdf) and on my network drive. Finding receipts is a breeze.
Probably one of my best investments for the last years.
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When photographing documents under glass, mount the camera perpendicular to the glass, place document on neutral gray background, and have TWO light sources, one on either side of the glass, at 45å¡ to the plane of the glass. Angle of incidence = angle of reflection. Shouldn’t be any bounce off the glass back at the camera.
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A smartphone and the Office Lens app from Microsoft does wonders.
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I have not used my wand scanner since I found CamScanner
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