Be Excellent To Each Other

Does anybody here have experience with scanning books?

I've got some old Usborne books that I'd like to scan. Of course, I'd like to do it without destroying or damaging them, so simply sticking them in a flatbed isn't going to work.

I've got a good camera, so I was thinking of making a scanning box. I had some basic ideas, but then I found Wikipedia's page on book scanning and saw this straightforward set up. Has anybody tried building one of these?

Worst. Palindrome. Ever.

(sorry I can't be of more assistance)

Some scanners (like mine) have removable lids which helps a lot when scanning from books, but only up to A4 (or whatever your scanner size is, obv).

Spread them out flat? That would knacker the spine!

Not if you're reasonably fit and flexible.

How about doing one page at a time, so that half the book is hanging at right angles off the edge... come on, think outside the box!

Not if the scanner is on the edge of a table and the book is open 90º.

Edit: Like what Myp done said.

At school we used to have handheld scanners that you would drag down the page, coupled with some OCR software.

They were crap, as they'd elongate the characters if you moved too quickly.

I think the camera idea is going to be the easiest approach these days anyway. I tried scanning a short story using an OCR app on the iPhone, using natural light from the window. It worked well. Not even this iphone either, the old one with fixed focus. So basically any digital camera will be better than that, use a tripod if you have it. Find some OCR software, go to it.

Obviously that will only work if all you want is the content, what if you want actual scanned pages with artwork, etc...

These are full page illustrations. I don't have a scanner where the scanning pane covers the entire top surface. (Do they even exist?)

I don't need OCR stuff, I'm going to process the images and put them into a CBZ.

Yes they exist. I don't have one though as they're very expensive. The solution is to scan sections of the page and join them together in photoshop (or similar).

Or make a copy stand and use a camera like in your earlier post.