How to scan a paper book into an ebook

A simple setup could be a V shaped stand made from a few pieces of wood. A cookbook stand may even work so long as the book can remain open. A more complex setup will block out much of the light from the room, hold the sheet of glass in place better and remotely trigger the camera so you don't wobble it when taking photos. This speeds up both imaging each page and OCR 'ing the resulting image.

You can add more to these setups to further improve the process, and if you're planning on scanning a lot of books the time spent will be amply repaid.

But start simple - just put a tripod on a table and see what happens. Yes, you will need to proofread the resultant document. Running a spell checker first will help find some common OCR errors. Keep a copy of the original images!

Most OCR software processes the image to make it easier for the software to recognize, but sometimes this does not work and the OCR image is hard for you to read too. Proofreading in the OCR software is necessary but not enough.

The first time you read through the text you will find many more errors and correcting those will often require looking at the original image or the original book. A search for some of these may be in order. I personally own an Archivist Quill, but I'm not telling you to spend that kind of money If you have a smartphone and a little bit of handiness, you might try making something like this iPhone book scanner as a start.

Clean the images Use a program like ScanTailor to clean up the images. Generate a PDF If you choose the easy route, this is the last step. OCR the images If you want to create "proper" ebooks out of your scanned images, you will need to run the cleaned images through an OCR program. Proofread and correct the text outputs This step is really time-consuming.

Create the ePub file This step can be rather complicated. Improve this answer. This is a really good and detailed answer, but I think that all this process is more suited for libraries and organizations, it is a bit overkill for a domestic use, where presumably one has a life to live.

You got my upvote, but again my advice for the OP is to get the ebooks from another source rather than embarking in this endeavor. Sekhemty I completely agree. However, the OP is not the only person who has this question, and Google could bring a librarian or organization here. Also, who knows what the OP is willing to do. Some people might see a process like this as an opportunity to build a home business.

As far as scanning the books manually and legally, that seems like a lot of wasted effort. The Overflow Blog. Stack Gives Back Safety in numbers: crowdsourcing data on nefarious IP addresses. Featured on Meta. New post summary designs on greatest hits now, everywhere else eventually.

Linked Related 6. Hot Network Questions. Ebooks Stack Exchange works best with JavaScript enabled. Accept all cookies Customize settings. And, if you've got the time, you can turn your favorite antiquated paper book into an ebook too. It's just going to take a lot of page turningand scanning.

So whether you're ready to share the manuscript that's been sitting in a folder on your desktop for years, or you'd like digitize an old paper copy of Cervantes, here's our guide to creating a digital copy of just about any book. There are a handful of popular formats that will work with just about any e-reader, but you'll have to base your final decision on whether the book is just for you, or for a wider audience.

If you're trying to share your debut novel with the world, the easiest path is to use Kindle Direct Publishing from Amazon. Run your formatted text through this free tool, and it will make your work available in the Kindle marketplace almost immediately. The tool preps your book to look great on the company's widely used Kindle software. It can then be devoured easily on any reader, phone, or other device with a Kindle app.

If you'd rather not put your book in Amazon's store, but you'd still like to make a Kindle- or iPad-readable ebook that you can distribute on some other website, try using a service like Blurb.

The ebook creation software offers many options to lay out your book however you like. Also note that all e-readers, including Kindles, can read PDF files. The most relevant one to me personally is the ability to make printed material accessible for specific people with specific, documented print disabilities e. Blindness is, of course the most commonly understood of these--if you can't see the text, you clearly can't read it! Dyslexia is a reading disability that involves perceptual difficulties that revolve around the decoding of phonemes letters and letter patterns , into words--so the person's vision is perfect, but there is a specific neurological processing issue that prevents the printed words from being understood as words by the person who has the condition.

Finally, in folks with paralysis from the neck down cannot turn pages--therefore they cannot open the book to see what's in it. Conversion of owned texts or library texts for these people is legal with conditions under the Chaffee Ammendment to Copyright law.

By converting these books electronically via screen reader and other software the materials become accessible to folks with print disabilities.

So there is a clearly legal and alturistic use for this instructable!. But otherwise, I agree with you point. Reply 4 years ago. Good article but need to clarify what you end up after scanning your book. Its not a true ebook, its a scanned document readable in any pdf reader.