Scanning old manuals

From: Joe <rigdonj_at_intellistar.net>
Date: Tue Mar 9 18:27:14 1999

At 12:32 PM 3/9/99 -0500, you wrote:
>On Tue, 9 Mar 1999, Arfon Gryffydd wrote:
>
>> Okay,
>>
>> I have some old computer manuals and I just bought a scanner...... Anyone
>> care to suggest the best way to convert these manuals to electronic form
>> and not take up HUGE amounts of memory?
>>
>
>I'd like to second this notion. Could those on this list, who are
>scanning for posterity, share their methods?
>
>What platform(s), what hardware(s), what software(s). Any intermediary
>format(s), final output format(s). Whatever it takes.
>
>I am especially puzzled by dpi. Seems everybody in the world is scanning
>at 600 or over. I am contemplating using a Hewlett Packard at 300 and
>from some test scans, including pictures, I am hard pressed to tell the
>difference between 2 and 3 hundred. Extremely high numbers coupled with
>millions of colors (where applicable) seem to me to be just a waste of
>storage space.

  I scanned a bunch of articles recently and found that the appearance
didn't degrade until I went below ~125 DPI. I scanned and posted
everything at 150 DPI, then used PhotoShop to save the images at a fixed
600 to 800 pixel width (keeping the height/width ratio). Scannning at 150
DPI saved a bunch of disk space and time. FWIW I was scanning black text
on a white background, you may have to adjust the settings for different
font size, color, etc.

  I tried Omni-Carea OCR but it was totally useless!!!

   Joe
Received on Tue Mar 09 1999 - 18:27:14 GMT