Computer scanner help requested..

[thatguy]

I am trying to scan a manual that we created at work in excel and word so it can be converted and combined into one PDF file later on.

A couple questions..

1) The scanner puts them in TIFF files, which are huge.. I can convert them to just about any file type using an image program (GraphicConverter on an older Mac w/ OS 9.x). Should I leave them as TIFF or convert them to something else?

2) What is a good DPI for scanning words AND screen shots/prints?

thanks

Brian

 

[DieselPower]

I have a program on my computer that came with my flatbed scanner. It's called ScanSoft OmniPage SE 2.0. It is a word recoginition program. Here's a breif description from the programs help section. I have used it many times to copy pages out of books and magazines or typed pages and converted them into editable text. It's a great program and might be the easiest way to do what your looking to do. It's made by --- Nuance - The Leading Supplier of Speech Recognition, Imaging, PDF and OCR Solutions

"What is OCR?
Optical character recognition (OCR) is the process of extracting text from an image of a page. This page image is an electronic picture of text and maybe other elements such as headings and pictures. Page images can result from scanning a paper document or from opening an electronic image file. You may receive these files by e-mail or from a fax machine or from your own scanner.

These images do not have editable text characters; they have many tiny dots (pixels) that together form a picture of text. The OCR process examines the text image and creates computer-editable text from it, so you do not have to retype the text manually.

OCR takes image: and creates text:

During OCR, OmniPage SE uses the settings selected in the OmniPage Toolbox to determine the text flow on a page, and creates ordered zones around areas of a page to identify what will be recognized as text or retained as a graphic. After OCR, you can save the resulting text to a variety of word-processing, page layout, and spreadsheet applications.

OmniPage SE's OCR Capabilities
In addition to text recognition, OmniPage SE can retain the following elements of a document during OCR.

Graphics
Photos, logos, and drawings are examples of graphics.

Text formatting
Font types, font sizes, and font styles (such as bold or italic) are examples of text character formatting. Spacing between paragraphs, indents, tabs, line spacing and alignment and examples of paragraph formatting.

Page formatting
Column structure, paragraph placement, table handling, and locations of graphics are examples of page formatting.

Text Editor views
Recognition results are placed in the Text Editor. This offers three views and allows you to define how much formatting you want to have displayed.

OmniPage SE only recognizes machine-printed characters such as laser-printed or typewritten text. However, it can retain handwritten text, such as a signature, as a graphic."

 

[Soundguy]

200 dpi would be the minimum I would use.. that's about fax quality. The higher res you go.. the better quality you get.. there will be a point of diminishing returns though.. also.. don't get into extended dpi that some scanners offer past their native dpi.. IE.. if your scanner is 600 dpi but can 'extend - fake' 1200.. stay at 600. Also.. the more dpi.. the bigger the pic size.

Soundguy

 

[Jimbrown]

What you are trying to do is very frustrating and unless you can keep all of the scans in one file nearly impossible you will not have a usable product. Office has a built in scanner program but it will reformat anything that is not simple text and look all funny. If you do not have a good scanner program designed to do this it would be much better , faster and far less frustrating to just take it to somplace like mail boxes ect or UPS store and have them do it for you. But in some cases they may refuse if it is copywrited material.

 

[inveresk]

If you convert the tiff files to jpeg, they'll be smaller. Tiff is usually used for printing to high end documents with millions of colours such as photographs. Jpeg is mostly what I use for colour illustrations and photographs that are to be viewed on screen rather than printed. If your document is black and white, you could even get away with converting the tiff files to bitmap.

300 dpi is a good enough scan density to be viewed on screen but will look a little pixelated if you print it. However, colour scans above 300 dpi tend to get really bloated so your final pdf file would be pretty big if you scan above this resolution.

If you have access to it on computer, can't you output a pdf version of the Word/Xcel manual you want to include in your pdf document? It would be easier than scanning a paper version and mean your final pdf document is a much smaller file.

 

[thatguy]

Thanks for the help.. I was hoping not to go the OCR route since i dont need to change anything and that could be an extra step. I just need to scan a printed document into a manageable file to be converted to PDF..

I tried GIF, but the quality dropped off.. I may try jpeg.. the TIFF files were almost 450kb.. I may take the suggestion and have someone do it for me as well. we have a print shop at work that would do it, but they were backed up and I needed it sooner..

thanks

Brian

 

[Dallas_Lilly]

If you or know somebody that has the professional version of acrobat you can combine excel and word files to make one pdf and not scan anything. I have the pro version and could do it for you. PM me and I can give you my email so you could email me the files.

 

[Kendall69]

Like Dallas said. Also you can print to your Hard Drive via PDF, which makes it a PDF instantly. Then you can either combine all your PDF's into one file or keep them separate.

 

[BillG_in_TX]

If you or know somebody that has the professional version of acrobat you can combine excel and word files to make one pdf and not scan anything. I have the pro version and could do it for you. PM me and I can give you my email so you could email me the files.

You don't need Acrobat. All you need is - pdf 995: create PDF documents easily for free

It's free and creates pdf files from any application, as it installs as a printer. I've been using it a long time, and it works great. They also offer the capability to combine pdf's into a single file, and digitally encrypt the files - all for free. The output is clean, with no watermarks or footnotes added like some other free pdf generators.

 

[rback33]

If you or know somebody that has the professional version of acrobat you can combine excel and word files to make one pdf and not scan anything. I have the pro version and could do it for you. PM me and I can give you my email so you could email me the files.

I was thinking the same thing... I don't have the Pro version, but I have the one that lets me create and edit PDF's from existing files. My only fear would be not getting the two files combined right for you..... I'd shoot the files to Dallas... he'll get it taken care of I am sure. Should be pretty easy.

 

[RoyJackson]

Do you have the original Excel and Word files?
If so, that will significantly reduce your work.

Since you were planning to scan and convert to a .pdf, you must have Adobe Acrobat (not the Reader) Standard or Professional or another program that can create .pdf's or convert existing files as BillG suggested. I've used PDF995. It does work nice but opens up your browser for a sales pitch every time you print to pdf. If you plan on doing much of this kind of thing, it's worth buying the full version or Adobe (get an older version off eBay). I use Adobe Acrobat 7.0 (upgraded from 5.0).

If you have Acrobat, and it's been installed correctly, you can print, or select the file or files and convert ( select a file, right click and you'll see the Adobe commands.

Printing directly to pdf will result in a much higher quality and smaller file size then you can do by scanning hard copies.

Adobe is pretty intuitive. If you have it and need help, send me a PM. PDF995 is also pretty easy to use (I've printed to it, but don't know if it can convert and combine)...as written above, it continuously opens your browser to the sales page (pain in the butt).

If you do not have the original Excell and Word files, and you must scan, select the highest quality you can get for printing to .pdf. You can delete the scanned images once you've printed or converted to pdf. You cannot make a low quality scan better after the fact. The .Tiff format will give you a high quality. Converting to another image format (.jpg, for example) will likely lower the quality. BTW, in my experience, once converted to pdf, a large (in kb) image file results in a relatively small (in kb) pdf file, even though it looks as good as the original image.

 

[Gatorboy]

I am trying to scan a manual that we created at work in excel and word so it can be converted and combined into one PDF file later on.

I understand the Excel and Word to PDF part, but why do you need to scan anything -- that middle step is not needed.

 

[rox]

My Epson all in one printer does exactly what you are looking for. When you scan with Epson during the scan process you can save it as a .pdf file. Then you can select high quality .PDF, standard Quality .pdf low Quality .pdf

What I do is jsut print the MS Word document or Excel onto paper, I put the printed paper in my epjon injet all in one and save it as a .pdf file. once you select .pdf file after you have scanned the first page it will ask you if you want to add another page, I jsut say "yes" and it will tell you to insert the new page then hit the scan button.

I have been very careful to keep my the glass in my all in one free of anything sticky, even when I am making photo copies. As long as you have a nice clear screen they come out great as .pdf files. Hope this hels you.

I love my Epson printers and will never go back to Hp. I was a die ahrd HP printer customer for eyars but now thier stuff is junk compated to the Epsons. Plus the quality of the ink itself on the Epson's are fantastic. I buy special injet printable vinyl lables PlanetLabel - White Matte Vinyl Inkjet Labels - Bottle Labels that once they go through the Epson injet printers the label is waterproof (and olive oil proof). Even without the special labels Epson ink even on paper is jsut about waterproof.

These labels are very cool. say you are making equipment and you need to make just a few warning labels to stick on the equipment, you can buy these balnks and print them up yourself (I have used both the HP and the epson printers on these vinyle labels and Epson printer gives superior results plus the extra thick paper/vinyl stock doens't jam in the epson printers like it does in the HP Printers.

Sorry to hijack the thread but I can't ay enough about these labels with the epson Printers. Say you were an electrician dong electrical boxes, you could print up custom made waterproof labels right on your injet printer. I ahve also boughten form onlinelabels.com but thier stock is not bright white like planet label. It is a dull white alomst like eggshell colored.

Well see ther is a lot you can do with an Epsn printer you can make .pdf files (trying to work my way back to the topic ) and also print waterproof vinyl labels. There is also another company I use Rippedsheets.com Custom Blank Laser Inkjet Labels Tags Magnets thier waterproof custom die cut for you blank label stock is also excellent.

 

[jinman]

=BillG_in_TX]You don't need Acrobat. All you need is - pdf 995: create PDF documents easily for free

Bill, does PDF995 create files that have editable text? If you have the full version of Adobe Acrobat, you can use the "Touchup" text tool to make minor edits to text. Also Acrobat has some great tools for creating bookmarks and menus for easily managing huge documents. PDF995 is a good value since it's free, but I would also highly recommend the full Acrobat program for this and many other features.

Also, if you are working with illustrations in something other than PDF format, often the PNG format will save those illustrations in better resolution and much smaller files than JPEG. JPEG was designed for photos and works great for them. For illustrations in PowerPoint, consider the PNG format, particularly if there are not a lot of gradients.

 

[MossRoad]

I understand the Excel and Word to PDF part, but why do you need to scan anything -- that middle step is not needed.

I agree. If he has the original documents in Excel and Word, why does he need to scan anything? Excel and Word documents are completely compatible with each other. Why not just combine them electronically on-screen into one Word document the way he wants it to appear and then print it or convert it to PDF at that point?

 

[thatguy]

I agree. If he has the original documents in Excel and Word, why does he need to scan anything? Excel and Word documents are completely compatible with each other. Why not just combine them electronically on-screen into one Word document the way he wants it to appear and then print it or convert it to PDF at that point?

the reason I needed to scan them was the manual has screen shots that were done separately and then pasted (literally, not computerized paste) in the the finished product.. There are A LOT of screen shots.. Out of the first 25 or so pages, almost 20 pages had some sort screen shots in them..

After messing with it most of the morning a co-worker and I are going to just go back and redo the screen shots and paste them directly into the original Word and Excel files this time..

thanks

brian

 

[MossRoad]

the reason I needed to scan them was the manual has screen shots that were done separately and then pasted (literally, not computerized paste) in the the finished product.. There are A LOT of screen shots.. Out of the first 25 or so pages, almost 20 pages had some sort screen shots in them..

After messing with it most of the morning a co-worker and I are going to just go back and redo the screen shots and paste them directly into the original Word and Excel files this time..

thanks

brian

I was wondering about that. I figured you only had a paper copy instead of electronic copy. Re-doing screen shots will still be faster than scanning. Do you have a screen capture utlity or are you just going to use the printscreen functions of Windows? I would suggest Gadwin PrintScreen - Screen capture software . It works very well and is free.

 

[BillG_in_TX]

I was wondering about that. I figured you only had a paper copy instead of electronic copy. Re-doing screen shots will still be faster than scanning. Do you have a screen capture utlity or are you just going to use the printscreen functions of Windows? I would suggest Gadwin PrintScreen - Screen capture software . It works very well and is free.

Moss - Thanks for the link. That's a very handy utility, and customizable!

Bill, does PDF995 create files that have editable text? If you have the full version of Adobe Acrobat, you can use the "Touchup" text tool to make minor edits to text. Also Acrobat has some great tools for creating bookmarks and menus for easily managing huge documents. PDF995 is a good value since it's free, but I would also highly recommend the full Acrobat program for this and many other features.

Jim - I don't think it does have those features, but then again, he wasn't looking for them either. I agree that Acrobat has more bells & whistles and the price reflects that. I'm a freeware freak.