How to Scan Large Amounts of Text into Your Computer

Have you ever had to scan large volumes of text? It's a nuisance! Although using a scanner and OCR software is a great step up from retyping, if you're scanning any document of considerable length, it is still a nuisance. Take the example of a book, for instance. Recently, one of my friends had the occasion to copy the entirety of an out of print, public domain book. To make two copies of it, in fact. So, he set work photocopier, and two hours later had his two copies of the book. "My god!" I thought upon hearing this. Doesn't there have to be a better way to do this?

The answer came upon reading a news item about Google's ambitious attempt to digitalize half the Library of Congress. As it turns out, companies like Google use a machine that scans books by automatically turning their pages, and taking a picture of each page with high resolution digital camera. After little trial and error, I determined that I could but this technique to work myself, after a fashion. This way, I was able to scan an entire book in about 10 minutes. Here's how:

First, choose a well lit desk surface to setup on. It would be a good idea to bring over a desk lamp and to make sure that the document in question is properly illuminated, although not illuminated so brightly as to cause glare.

Next, set up the camera. Many digital cameras these days have ridiculously powerful resolutions. My camera, for example, has a resolution of 7.1 megapixels, meaning that it can take a picture with such good quality that, zoomed in, it is possible to make out the print on a page of paper held by someone six feet away from a photographer. This is exactly the principle we're going to use. To do this, we need to come up with a way to set the camera up such that it is pointing down at the desk, from about three feet above it. Since tripod are usually designed to hold cameras horizontally, they might not prove to be the best option here. Instead, try setting up a chair and top of the desk, and position the camera on a piece of cardboard, with its lens pointing through a hole, hanging just off the edge of the chair. Make sure everything is stable, and your camera doesn't fall. Clear everything off your memory card, plug your camera into its AC adapter, and to make sure it's properly positioned. Then, you're ready to go! Turn pages with one hand, and take pictures with the other. In short order, you'll have images of the entire document. Next, simply download them to a computer, and run them through an OCR. (Optical Character Recognition program) If the pictures were of sufficiently good quality, there will be no errors and recognition. The program will output a word document of the entire book, or whatever else it was that you were scanning. Aren't you glad you didn't do that all by hand?