The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.
Scanning an entire book usually is a difficult task, at best. Turning the pages manually and holding the book on a typical desktop scanner is a tedious process for a typical volume of 200 pages or more. The other problem is "curl." That is, the binding is such that most books will not lie flat on the scanner and the resultant image looks poor. Trying to convert those images to text using OCR (optical text recognition) is probably impossible.
NOTE: You can find a description of optical character recognition at http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/apps/story/0,10801,73023,00.html. You can find pointers to many OCR articles at http://searchsmallbizit.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,290660,sid44_gci214132,00.html.
The usual solution to both of these issues is to cut the binding off the book and then use a scanner that has an automatic document feeder. The automatic document feeders work in a similar manner to a photocopy machine or FAX machine: insert a stack of papers, press a button and then walk away. The machine automatically selects one page at a time, inserts it and then scans the page.
However, many of us are reluctant to cut the bindings from our valuable books. Thanks to modern technology, there is a better solution.
The remainder of this article is for Plus Edition subscribers only. SUBSCRIBE NOW to read this article.
If you have a Plus Edition user ID and password, you can read the full article right now at no additional charge in this web site's Plus Edition at http://eogn.com/wp/?p=14964. This article will remain online for several weeks.
If you do not remember your Plus Edition user ID or password, you can retrieve them at http://www.eogn.com/wp/ and click on "Forgot password?"
If you decide to subscribe to the Plus Edition right now, you will be able to immediately read this article online. What sort of articles can you read in the Plus Edition? Click here to find out.
For more information about subscribing to the Plus Edition of Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter, visit http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/plusedition.html
To see what others are saying about this newsletter and the Plus Edition articles, go to http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/comments-from-subscribers.html
Recent Comments