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Can you recommend a quick, easy method for scanning all the pages? I like paper notebooks, too. Someday, I'd like to have an app that would let me turn any ord

by SiVal 6y ago

Can you recommend a quick, easy method for scanning all the pages? I like paper notebooks, too. Someday, I'd like to have an app that would let me turn any ordinary stack of scratch paper or notebook into a searchable PDF in under 5 minutes. I would finish a notebook and just put my phone on a gooseneck stand and turn the pages one at a time (not riffle) at one page per second or two, and it would know when to take the photos, which it would flatten, orient, and bind into a PDF of the notebook. It would maintain my handwritten pages but add an OCR'ed backstore of the text that could be used to create something like a table of contents, an index, and a fulltext search. I imagine some portion of that is already available, and the rest will be arriving anytime now.

WalterBright 6y ago
> Can you recommend a quick, easy method for scanning all the pages? The trick is to use a hopper fed scanner that scans both sides at the same time. Not a flat bed scanner. I use an old Fujitsu fi-5120C scanner. I haven't found an OCR yet that will decipher handwriting. I would think that with all the advances in AI this would be an easy problem.
- SirGiggles 6y ago
  I think the technology has already been around for a while, but probably not big enough of a market for desktop usage. On my iPad as an example, Notability, GoodNotes, and OneNote (and possibly on desktop versions as well) are able to perform handwriting recognition and text conversion
  - retrac 6y ago
    Handwriting recognition when you can watch the person write (stroke order and timing) is actually a very different problem from recognizing handwriting from an image without that data, which is much harder. Though these days statistical learning techniques similar to those used in machine translation are getting pretty darn good at it.
bumbada 6y ago
I use different methods, but the most important one is an old Fujitsu Snapscan automatic feeder scanner that scans pages by both sides at the same time. I bought that in order to OCR books(destroying them cutting them with a rotary disk saw) long time ago but I use it today for digitalizing all my notes. If you don't care about destroying your notebooks, it is the best solution. I did that with my University notebooks because I needed to access them in work after University and travel a lot so I don't want the bulkiness of carrying around 20 kilos. No need to flatten, orient, color correct anything, tens of pages per minute. Because of the scanner for my own notes I use single sheets of paper and high quality aluminum clipboards and Staedtler 432 M color pens that last for more than a year or intense work. Way cheaper than a tablet with stylus. I digitalize old books today that need special care and could not be destroyed, archival material like diaries from wars. For that I use an array of cameras and a projector and sophisticated software to flatten it. But that is expensive and needs lots of work. If you are interested on that, just google DIY book scanner, but I recommend the automatic feeder scanner if you can.
brnrr 6y ago
I used to mess around with a flat-bed scanner (autofeed would be easier) but my current system is simple but quick. I use my Canon camera: Click click, flip page, repeat. Copy to laptop, batch resize & rename, drag into a folder. No OCR, but it wouldn't pick up my shorthand anyway :)

by SiVal 6y ago

WalterBright 6y ago

> Can you recommend a quick, easy method for scanning all the pages? The trick is to use a hopper fed scanner that scans both sides at the same time. Not a flat bed scanner. I use an old Fujitsu fi-5120C scanner. I haven't found an OCR yet that will decipher handwriting. I would think that with all the advances in AI this would be an easy problem.

SirGiggles 6y ago
I think the technology has already been around for a while, but probably not big enough of a market for desktop usage. On my iPad as an example, Notability, GoodNotes, and OneNote (and possibly on desktop versions as well) are able to perform handwriting recognition and text conversion
- retrac 6y ago
  Handwriting recognition when you can watch the person write (stroke order and timing) is actually a very different problem from recognizing handwriting from an image without that data, which is much harder. Though these days statistical learning techniques similar to those used in machine translation are getting pretty darn good at it.

bumbada 6y ago

I use different methods, but the most important one is an old Fujitsu Snapscan automatic feeder scanner that scans pages by both sides at the same time. I bought that in order to OCR books(destroying them cutting them with a rotary disk saw) long time ago but I use it today for digitalizing all my notes. If you don't care about destroying your notebooks, it is the best solution. I did that with my University notebooks because I needed to access them in work after University and travel a lot so I don't want the bulkiness of carrying around 20 kilos. No need to flatten, orient, color correct anything, tens of pages per minute. Because of the scanner for my own notes I use single sheets of paper and high quality aluminum clipboards and Staedtler 432 M color pens that last for more than a year or intense work. Way cheaper than a tablet with stylus. I digitalize old books today that need special care and could not be destroyed, archival material like diaries from wars. For that I use an array of cameras and a projector and sophisticated software to flatten it. But that is expensive and needs lots of work. If you are interested on that, just google DIY book scanner, but I recommend the automatic feeder scanner if you can.

brnrr 6y ago

I used to mess around with a flat-bed scanner (autofeed would be easier) but my current system is simple but quick. I use my Canon camera: Click click, flip page, repeat. Copy to laptop, batch resize & rename, drag into a folder. No OCR, but it wouldn't pick up my shorthand anyway :)