HOWTO: Scan 10x13 pages

[idoc 400]

All my professional journals are 10x13. I can easily rip out the articles that I need but I have no way of scanning these into my Fujitsu scan snap. Any tricks on how this can be accomplished? The articles are double sided.

[gazumped 11,652]

A scansnap (or at least my scansnap) comes with/ came with (darn those Grammar Police) a little utility that allows you to scan large items. A plastic carrier that will allow you to fold a flat sheet in half, and when the SS does a double-sided scan, it will stitch the two pictures together side-by side so you can get up to double width scans. To scan wide or double-width, double sided sheets you have to fold the paper in half twice - once each way. Not a great solution for lots of pages, but OK for one or two.

Another option is to photograph the pages - anything from a webcam to a digital SLR will do as long as it can take a good quality snap and you can change pages underneath it easily. For small numbers and ease of use I have an Android app called CamScanner which goes to PDF; for something more intense I have a copying set-up that will hold pages flat and provide even lighting for my DSLR.

A third option is to look online - if you're a member of a professional body they'll often have the magazine in digital form and you can borrow pages that way. Articles from press releases and formal papers often have links back to the source material which is (the material, not the sources) sometimes more useful than the commentary.

Evernote's OCR of images seems fairly forgiving, but you need to make sure that pictures are in focus and free of any shake - phone and digital cameras seem to need relatively long exposures which can quickly show if you've been standing too close to the bar lately.

NB I have a magazine where I cut off the side margins to fit the scanner - it's a tight fit, but clean cuts feed through without any jams.

Good luck!

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

As gazumped mentioned, check into folding the sheets & using the carriers that came with your S1500s. Not a speedy method, but it should get the job done.

Another option, in addition to the alternatives gazumped mentioned is if you have access to a high end copier that can copy pages that large & reduce them to a standard size. You can then scan the standard size sheets.

Good luck.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

1. as already mentioned, photography. you can do it very effectively with a decent camera, tripod, and a coat hanger. http://www.subchaser.org/photographing-documents

2. as already mentioned, a high-end copier/scanner (most offices have them these days).

[idoc 400]

Thanks guys. The carrier sheet method works but is very cumbersome. Since the article was two double sided pages I had to do it four times, crop the images, merge the files into one etc. Ultimately I got the entire article into one pdf but it's too cumbersome a process to do on a regular basis. I downloaded CamScanner and will try that approach next. The tripod and coat hanger method is too difficult for me. Ultimately, if I can't scan something I always have a trusty cabinet next to me to store it in paper format!

[gazumped 11,652]

In cases of extreme pressure (or extreme laziness) blue-tack and a handy wall can also help.. (and a phone or digital camera)

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Thanks guys. The carrier sheet method works but is very cumbersome. Since the article was two double sided pages I had to do it four times, crop the images, merge the files into one etc. Ultimately I got the entire article into one pdf but it's too cumbersome a process to do on a regular basis. I downloaded CamScanner and will try that approach next. The tripod and coat hanger method is too difficult for me. Ultimately, if I can't scan something I always have a trusty cabinet next to me to store it in paper format!

you are kidding, right? place camera on tripod, extend tripod leg, attach bent coat hanger. if you don't own a metal coat hanger, a piece of tape will do it. this is a very simple process

[idoc 400]

Well, I don't have a tripod and I don't want to use my SLR (since I would have to dig out the data from the SD card) and I don't really have a good work space to do this. However, I just downloaded and used Camscanner (as recommended by Operative in this thread) and I think that it will suffice. I use it on my android phone's camera and it's a very nice little app. The scans are perfectly legible and usable (although not elegant enough for formal use). Takes a few seconds to do and requires no setup whatsoever. Thanks for the tip,

[Candid 167]

I have a 1300 so I don't think I can even do the the folded method.

One thing to try is to trim the margins on the pages. Obviously this will depend on the journal, but I scanned a bunch of large magazine recipes on similarly large pages and found I could trim the margins and then they would scan.

[gazumped 11,652]

ScanSnaps seem quite versatile in the sort of paper they'll scan so sometimes it's useful to dismember a page into sections. Where you've got a three-column header paragraph forinstance followed by single-column copy, you can take the header, then cut the page into columns and scan the pieces in order. Not elegant, but doable in lots of cases. There is always (as they say) more than one way to get down off an elephant.

[S.Lewis 1]

GrumpyMonkey - thanks for the Subchasing link! I do a lot of photos to capture family records & pics for my genealogy and this article is now clipped to my Genealogy Tools notebook in EN. Thanks for sharing!

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

GrumpyMonkey - thanks for the Subchasing link! I do a lot of photos to capture family records & pics for my genealogy and this article is now clipped to my Genealogy Tools notebook in EN. Thanks for sharing!

glad it helped. it certainly helped me!