Scanning Manuals

[Ewen]

Ok - so I haven't scanned before, and really need some help.

I have a networked HP printer that can scan, and various computers attached to it (Mac and PC). The printer instructions are very scant and whilst I can get it to scan individual pages - they each appear as an individual word or paint document (each one very large too, so unsuitable for emailing).

What I want to be able to do (without spending money on software), is scan in an entire boombox manual page by page, but so that the end result is only one document, of a size reasonable to email. Any steer on best software to use for this?

If you can post guidance (imagine you are explaining it to a slow elderly relative), I'd be really thankful.

Ewen

 

[Fatdog]

Here's my $.02 (for Windows users):

This only works if you have a PDF printer. If you don't have one, you can download one absolutely FREE from Foxit Software.

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/creator/

You really need to scan the manual with, at least, 150dpi - preferably in black & white mode. That will help cut down on size. Some might suggest scanning in "line art" mode, but that creates problems with small text, so don't do that.

Scan each of your pages to an image file, like .jpg, It's tedious for sure. Name them by page number and put them into a new (empty) folder.

When you're finished with all the scanning, open the folder, select all of them by pressing Ctrl+A to select all files (in Windows). Right click and select "print." That will open the Photo Printing Wizard. Make sure all of the images have checks in the checkboxes and continue. Select a printer that can print to a PDF file and click on "print."

The new PDF document will be created to distribute. Depending on the number of pages and compression settings for JPG, you still might end up with a 10MB to 15MB file, which is still reasonable considering today's broadband Internet.

I hope all of that makes sense.

 

[MasterBlaster84]

Good tips Fatdog but I might add if you have any pages with actual pictures (Blacka and White not color) and not just drawings then using Gray Scale for just those pages will bring the pic over almost perfectly where black and white will give you a big black blurry mess. It will probably increase the size of the file for that page by 10 to 20 times so you only want to do it on those particluar pages.

 

[Ewen]

Thanks both - will be giving this a go shortly.

So - the combined PDF file 'creates itself' when I try and print them all using that print tool? i.e it's then available as a single combined document afterwards to email to someone?

 

[Superduper]

I scan mine at 400dpi but never less than 300dpi, BW and come up with reasonable file sizes. The readability is best this way. BW images need to be inspected closer with magnifying glass. If you see that the image is made up of small dots (like on newspaper), then scanning in black/white with sufficient dpi will result in satisfactory pictures. If on the other hand, the images are not assembled with small dots, then like MB says, it will result in images being displayed like a big black blob, especially at low dpi settings.

If the images you are getting are each very large, my guess is that the scanner's default setting is to scan in color. Color pages do indeed result in unacceptably large file sizes.