techno quest , gawd help us

[hedgerow pete]

yep its the worst bloke ever to ask a computer based question, so sorry but here we go,

I have an old book which i wish to turn in to a pdf file, so i can email it to a friend, stop before you even go there about copy rights and all that this book is so old that evan noah would have read it . all i want to know is how to turn said book into a pdf file, Do i have to scan the book, as i do have a scanner but it saves the scan as a pohotograph picture not a writen document and i dont want to send this guy a set of 300 pictures as this will blow his mind and computer to bits, how do I dont all you techno people and dont forget the important bit

when replying please use small words with no computer speak unless it is hairy builder compatable please,

hedgerow pete

 

[BKF Admin]

What scanner model/make do you have Pete?

I have an HP scanner that has software that scans a book and turns it into a document you can read as a PDF/WORD etc.

 

[hedgerow pete]

all i have is a four in one printer scanner jobbie, i will have a play later to see what it will save as

 

[BKF Admin]

On mine you scan it as a picture and save it as a document.

 

[Hombre]

What is the make and model of your four in one printer scanner Pete.

Do you also run Microsoft Office or the alternative OpenOffice.org software, if so which, if not say so?

These details are very helpful to those that might be able to assist you. Without them they are mostly just having to wildly guess or give you a generic solution.

 

[jimbeekeeper]

Pete

Go to this web site

http://www.pdfforge.org/pdfcreator

And click in the big red box "download pdf creator"

let it do its donwload, stuff.

Then scan your docs

Then the pdf program acts like a printer, but insdeadof paper it is a pdf flie.

Just select all your scans and press print.


or

Maybe I will complicate things? But if you can not sort the pdf thing, but can at least scan and get the pics, copy them to a CD,pop it in the post to me and I willconvert to pdf for you and email back.

 

[peteinwilts]

Hi Pete

If you have a lot of photos, you will probably find that it would be too big for email regardless..

If you want it easy, the price of me scanning it and converting it to pdf for you, would only cost you a swarm.

The last swarm you put to frames and gave me was my best hive last year!

Cheers
Pete

 

[PaleoPerson]

Hi Pete,

If you want to send me the book, I can scan the whole thing into one pdf document for you.

Send me PM if interested.

 

[Poly Hive]

Now that is an offer you really cannot refuse... Well done that man.

PH

 

[SixFooter]

Hi,

If you send it to me in any format the scanner uses, I can legally change it to pdf for you.

 

[SixFooter]

Just seen Paelo's response.
That's an even better offer than mine!

 

[RoofTops]

If the book has a lot of pages I suspect even a pdf, if it is to be readable, will be too big to e-mail. The way to make the smallest file would be to scan it with an optical character reader (OCR) and create a Word file or something simliar. You may well find your scanner has this option, check any help files it may have. There are free OCR software applications available but I have no experience of any of them, mine came as part of the Epson scanner disk.

OCR won't do photographs (at least mine doesn't) and there will be errors in the conversion, where it couldn't make out a character correctly, but it should be readable and once saved in something like Word it would be possible to convert it to a pdf file which will be much smaller than trying to pdf whole pages.

 

[Poly Hive]

OCR is brilliant. when I was offshore I took a job that involved inputting manifests into a spread sheet. some of the baskets arrived had literally a hundred items all with very technical specs invloved, length serial number thread type and so on.

Using OCR I was able to scan the page of the manifest and input it as numbers in a mater of minutes as opposed to typing it all out which my back to back did as the scanner was too difficult to use...LOL took him two days to input Red Baron cargo and I had it in in an hour.

I like OCR...LOL

PH

 

[hedgerow pete]

thanks everyone for all the advice , pms are to be sent later, many thanks all

 

[PaleoPerson]

If the book has a lot of pages I suspect even a pdf, if it is to be readable, will be too big to e-mail. The way to make the smallest file would be to scan it with an optical character reader (OCR) and create a Word file or something simliar. You may well find your scanner has this option, check any help files it may have. There are free OCR software applications available but I have no experience of any of them, mine came as part of the Epson scanner disk.

QUOTE]

Word documents are great if you want to edit the content but are MUCH bigger in filesize than the pdf version.

When I scan documents (on a £xx,xxx scanner) I can set the resolution on scan and the scanner generates the .pdf automatically. The only problem with old prints, is that sometimes, due to a combination of lpi and angle, the images can look 'blotchy' and this can sometimes be a pain. It is a try it and see job.

Either way, I can scan. dump on CD/DVD and send back with the book.