Our company handles scanning books to PDF services. We convert paper-based books or bound documents, to electronic file formats such as PDF. Our book scanning services also include the creation of Ebook files, of Word files or other file formats. Still, most of our customers ask us PDFs of scanned books.
For all the files generated, you can digitally read and modify your document or book. Publishers, besides asking for scanning of books to PDF, also want the Epub or Kindle file formats. They want to offer their out of print books to the public digitally, while others want to reprint them.
When it comes to scanning, we can do it non-destructive for rare books or destructive scanning for books that don’t need a return. There is also full color or grayscale scanning. Image cleaning features and OCR nonetheless.
Scanning the books – the 2 main scanning methods
Customers need to choose the service based on their book type. We can provide services for book scanning to PDF in both of these cases. When it comes to reprinting we do recommend to cut the book, just to be sure the quality is maximum. At the same time, we can deliver files for printing also for non-destructive book scans.
Non-destructive scanning
This type of book scanning services refers to books that need to be scanned but also returned. These are maintained in their original state. Special book scanners are required for this kind of process. They can scan books that are open to 180 degrees, 120 degrees and even some that do not open more than 90 degrees.
Non Destructive Scanning For a Book
We think that we can scan about 99% of the books in this world, using the non-destructive method. There are some rare cases in which either the spine has some damage or it was redone and not it’s too tight to scan. Still, even in those cases we can adjust and find a way to scan your book successfully.
Destructive scanning
We can apply this method to books that are not rare or many copies still exist. After the removal of the binding, we scan each page through a classic ADF scanner. This method is high speed and also features the highest quality.
It is also more productive because each sheet is automatically scanned through the equipment. Non-destructive scanning is more labor intensive than destructive scanning. Therefore, the costs for non-destructive scanning are much higher than for destructive scanning.
Scanning a book with the destructive method
For both of these cases, we can easily generate a PDF file. Not to mention that with OCR technology we can make PDF readable files. But for this, you can check the paragraph below that features the OCR information.
Scanned books in color or black and white
As a general rule, we see books that come in 3 different tonal values: Bitonal, Grayscale or Color.
Bitonal – Books in bitonal are usually text-only books. The page tint is usually white or cream color. The text is usually black. For such books, scanning in bitonal is more or less enough. We sometimes scan textbooks in grayscale though, especially to improve the OCR accuracy.
Grayscale – Books in grayscale are usually a combination of text and drawings. The text is usually black and the drawings are gray. There are cases in which there are gray pictures ( we call such pictures black and white ). But mostly it will be drawings or graphics that are gray. Those cases in which you need to scan text in grayscale are those when the text is rather pale. For this, you will need to combine grayscale scan with image post-processing.
Color – As the name says, color books are those books with inserts, drawings graphics that are other colors than black or gray. These books can be high-quality catalogs or magazines, or specialty books with graphics and layouts. All these books require color scanning which will improve the OCR and the general quality of the services of scanning books to PDF.
Difference between Bitonal, Grayscale, and Color for Book Scanning Services
Our review of the book scanning services we offer features a lot of information on these aspects. It is a good read and we can recommend that you give it a glance. At the same time, you can contact us and we will give you all the information you request on these technical aspects.
Optical character recognition and conversion to PDF
Scanning books to PDF services need to be done with OCR and the creation of PDF readable. Initially, when you scan a book, the result will be a PDF image. Although visually you can read the text, the computer does not recognize the image as text. For some customers it’s enough to have a PDF image, others require a digitally readable PDF file.
We provide the initial conversion of the PDF image to readable text through OCR. Ocr or optical character recognition is the trademark process of converting images to vector ( readable and editable text ). Through this process, we create Word or text files and the readable PDF files.
This process has different success rates based on the quality of the scan and image processing. The accuracy of OCR is a major talking point, but the better the first two steps are the higher the accuracy of the OCR.
The OCR process is very important to publishers and companies that create Ebook. Having structured and formatted layouts help any publisher to recreate that book into a digital file. The results are read on Kindle or other Ebook readers, usually with a very different layout than the original book. For them to be modified accordingly the OCR process has to work perfectly and give good results immediately after the conversion process.
Why choose our services of scanning books to pdf
- We are flexible enough to provide both types of book scanning services to PDF
- Our offer features all kinds of tonal values, from bitonal scanning to color
- The solution we offer combines high-quality scanning with advanced image processing features
- We can deliver all kinds of PDFs, from standard PDF to PDF/A archival format with OCR
- While there are many providers out there, we can supply testing and sampling of our work.
Click this link to find out more information on our book scanning services. Also, check our youtube channel for our video on book scanning services.