Ideas for photographing pages quickly.

WIAWSNB

outtatune said:

WIAWSNB said:

Thanks again, folks. 

From what I understand, it's just the info contained therein that's important - it doesn't have to be a neat, flat 'copy'. No idea of size, but imagine they are intact books so needs to be treated as such.

I'll do some experimenting with just hold-and-click, and I suspect that modern camera resolutions will capture the detail just fine. I'll offer my services as a page-turner and holder

Are these published books? If so then unless your and their time is literally worthless you'd be better off just buying second digital copies.

But even digital books cost around £2! :-(

(No, not a published book.)

WIAWSNB

rustybloke425 said:

FreeBear said:

WIAWSNB said:
I understand there will be lots of pages, so it needs to be quick and simple.

Flatbed scanner then.

Flatbed scanner is simple, sure. But a hell of a lot slower than taking a photograph. Result will be a lot nicer definitely.  But not quick by any means. 

Yes, I think it could be too much hassle - take too long. 

All that needs to occur is that the page content is clearly captured, and modern phone cameras are more than up to that job.

WIAWSNB

silvercar said:

If you are using your phone then the Notes app (iOS, though no doubt others have similar functions) you can start a new note and choose the camera button, then scan. That will allow you to take a photo of each page and it scans it better than a photo. It also means each book can be saved as a single document rather than each page saved individually.

That's interesting, thank you.

I'll experiment with that. Good chance I'll end up doing the obvious photos, as I don't want to be the one to mess it up... 

One day I hope to come back and tell a nice tale. 

MysteryMe

I can't see how taking photos is going to be quicker than a scanner, you have to spend time setting up the page to the photographed if you want uniformity in each image, as opposed to laying it on the scanner and hit scan. Presumably the imaged pages will need to be collated into a document file, which is easier with pdfs then a load of jpegs.

Section62

MysteryMe said:

I can't see how taking photos is going to be quicker than a scanner, you have to spend time setting up the page to the photographed if you want uniformity in each image, as opposed to laying it on the scanner and hit scan. Presumably the imaged pages will need to be collated into a document file, which is easier with pdfs then a load of jpegs.

There's free software available to batch convert jpeg (and various other formats) into pdf documents.

WIAWSNB

MysteryMe said:

I can't see how taking photos is going to be quicker than a scanner, you have to spend time setting up the page to the photographed if you want uniformity in each image, as opposed to laying it on the scanner and hit scan. Presumably the imaged pages will need to be collated into a document file, which is easier with pdfs then a load of jpegs.

The content just needs to be readable at leisure, that's all. 

Just tried some test shots with my Pixel - absolutely crisp and clear. No more than 3-4 seconds to turn a page, aim and fire. 

Will decide when we see the books whether each can be tackled single-handedly, or one person holds and one photo's. 

moneysaver1978

Have you looked to see if there is a PDF version of the book?

WIAWSNB

moneysaver1978 said:

Have you looked to see if there is a PDF version of the book?

It's not a book, it's a hand written ledger.

MysteryMe

Section62 said:

MysteryMe said:

I can't see how taking photos is going to be quicker than a scanner, you have to spend time setting up the page to the photographed if you want uniformity in each image, as opposed to laying it on the scanner and hit scan. Presumably the imaged pages will need to be collated into a document file, which is easier with pdfs then a load of jpegs.

There's free software available to batch convert jpeg (and various other formats) into pdf documents.

I was talking about combining multiple files into one file, not converting jpegs to PDF.  Having 100s of single page files is not particularly practical. As these are handwritten notes the OP has it's not particularly relevant but the other big advantage of PDFs is word search. You can't  do that with a JPEG.

Section62

MysteryMe said:

Section62 said:

MysteryMe said:

I can't see how taking photos is going to be quicker than a scanner, you have to spend time setting up the page to the photographed if you want uniformity in each image, as opposed to laying it on the scanner and hit scan. Presumably the imaged pages will need to be collated into a document file, which is easier with pdfs then a load of jpegs.

There's free software available to batch convert jpeg (and various other formats) into pdf documents.

I was talking about combining multiple files into one file, not converting jpegs to PDF.  Having 100s of single page files is not particularly practical. As these are handwritten notes the OP has it's not particularly relevant but the other big advantage of PDFs is word search. You can't  do that with a JPEG.

Me too.  The software can do various things, including taking a folder of jpegs and converting them all into one pdf.  Handy if you've scanned several pages and want to send it to someone as a pdf.  There's also an option to OCR the images to give searchable text.  Although as you suggest, with handwritten documents that may not be so useful.