[bookshare-discuss] Re: scanning help
- From: "traci" <season@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:45:52 -0700
Thanks John, Mary, Lyn and anyone else I may have missed. I was so frustrated
and spending half an hour with Freedom Scientific only increased my
iritability.
----- Original Message -----
From: John Immarino
To: bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 9:07 PM
Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Re: scanning help
Traci,
I just want to reiterate Mayrie's message. I've found that it is most
important to keep the book pressed against the scanner glass as completely as
possible. Don't rely on the weight of the book or the scanner cover to keep
the book in contact. I use both palms to press down on the book during
scanning, but am careful not to move the book at all while pressing. I use an
HP Photosmart C4280, which is a really cheap printer/scanner, and have gotten
excellent results with this method. Keep trying--it's just a matter of finding
what works best for you.
John
On 3/17/2010 6:42 PM, Mayrie ReNae wrote:
Hi Traci,
I feel your pain! Part of the problem you're having with this book is that
it's so huge! The thicker the book, as I'm sure you've noticed, the harder it
is to flatten the book onto the scanner. The junk you're seeing is simply the
shadow of the cleft between the pages showing up as junk in the scan. I
suggest trying to scan with your light source totally constant. Sometimes this
helps. For me, what this means is scanning at night in a dark room. Sounds
totally crazy, right? Probably it is. But sometimes it helps.
For your scanning errors, I'd suggest using gray scale, but I don't know if
OpenBook has this option as I scan using different software.
Also, many of your scanning errors can be gotten rid of using the find and
replace dialogue, but not always. I realize that with your "flick" example,
you can't globally replace it with the word you suggest it should be, because
"flick" is indeed an actual word, and might actually need to be where it
appears sometimes. But if you're getting the kinds of errors that can be fixed
with a global find and replace, for instance, "diese" for "these" or "diumb"
for "thumb" you can cut down on the number of corrections you'll need to make
by hand.
As for your particular book, if you own it, and don't mind beating it up,
I'd try opening it to its fullest, even perhaps even going as far as to making
the covers touch each other in quite a few places throughout the book and
holding it like that for a bit. This will make pressing the book flat on the
scanner less difficult. Now, if the book is not yours, or you want it to look
nice and pretty, this won't work.
Just some ideas. Does it help to know that what you're experiencing isn't
unique to you? And we all feel your pain and frustration when these things
happen. Unfortunately, sometimes, scans just come out needing a lot of TLC.
Good luck, and my sympathy is definitely with you.
Mayrie
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: traci [mailto:season@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 5:41 AM
To: bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bookshare-discuss] scanning help
hello everyone.
i am at a loss and ready to quit. it's bad enough that books I submit sit
there for months ready to be proofed but then to try so hard to scan them and
get garbage??? I have the resolution up to 400 dpi, using omni font page since
fine reader didn't work. i have the contrast set to black on white and have ocr
corrections enabled. my scanner is an all in one, a lexmark pro 205 series and
I'm using open book 8. What am I doing wrong? the f word in the books read as
flick and i have the ocr correction going yet it always scans as that. had
usually scans as ha: (ha followed by a colon). and this is what i hate most.
when scanning a book and it's toward the middle of it, i get partial pages no
matter how i try and flatten the pages into a smooth roll. this scanner is a
flat bed so I can only load from the left side as the fax machine is directly
below the bed and the copier is the actual scanner's top.
Another thing I get a lot of is the first word in a line might scan as 1111
or 4111 followed by thirteen to fourteen spaces and then the actual begining of
the sentence. Then right smack dab in the mddle of the sentence, you'll get a
word like ire followed by thirteen spaces and then a real word. for example:
I glanced up at her in utter disbelief t :ire:.. and shook my
head disgustedly.
No this crazy woman wasn't going to disrespect me in my own house after
everything we hav: been through.
1111 But she was and .:\tdd all I could feel was
contempt.
If there is no hope for this, please advise me what to look for in a good
scanner--dpi, page recognition, scanner brand, flatbed vs hand scanner. Please
help. I would like to share books but at this rate I may just end up reading
and proofing. This book "Chances" is over 500 pages long and it's a huge
undertaking that I wouldn't mind if the scanner would only stop puking all over
the pages.
Thanks
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