Best Printer for scanning books?

[Apostolos]

Hello everybody!
Quick question.
I have some old books that belonged to my grandfather and my father, and i want to digitize them before they get destroyed from time. My oki MC332 does a pretty good job, but because it's flatbed has limited scanning sizes, it leaves me with a black Γ frame and overburned images. (i don't care about color, B/W is fine as long as i can make sence of the images).

So now i've heard that some MFP's have a feature called OCR that dettects only letters and images in the scanned area, and the scanning comes out exactly as it is supposed to. I Googled some of them, but which one is the best for what i want? And exactly what does an OCR does?

 

[stratman]

OCR = Optical Character Recognition

OCR is software that converts an image of text, such as in a PDF file into text that can be read and manipulated by a word processing program. OCR can also use a scanner to scan a page of text and then use that image to convert it into text that a word processing program can use. As you already mentioned, OCR software may create a replica suitable to be used in a word processing program of mixed text and images from a graphics file.

For your purposes, you scan a page of the book and then the OCR software converts that scanned image into text data which you then save in your desired word processing program format such as MS Word or justn as plain text document.

You do not need an MFP printer to use OCR, those these All-In-One printers may come with OCR software bundled.

I cannot tell you which printer is best for OCR or which OCR software will suit your needs at a price you are willing to pay. Others here with more experience in using actual OCR software can inform you better. Until then, take a look at the following links:
http://ocr-software-review.toptenreviews.com/
http://ocr-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2424075,00.asp

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-ocr-software.htm

 

[cls]

I use abbyy finereader for OCR in german and english since like 8 years now and it works fantastic regardless where the images come from: ADF, photos etc

 

[Apostolos]

Thank you for your answers!
Maybe i wasn't clear, but i don't want to run OCR through computer. What i want is the OCR to be installed in the printer in order to convert the scanned page to pdf (or some other form) without a computer, but just with a usb stick, to the printer. My Oki does that, but it doesn't have OCR.

 

[The Hat]

Unfortunately what you want to do with your excising books can’t be done, no printer has a built in OCR reader, but the scanner will convert your books to JPEG, BMP, TIFF, PDF or Fax that’s about it. .

 

[Apostolos]

I'm going forward with my oki then. It converts them to pdf directly to the usb stick.It's not the best solution, but pretty close one.
I wonder though, what's the fuss with the printers that have OCR, and advertise it, if it can be done with simple computer software.

Are all of you sure that that's all there is to it?

 

[martin0reg]

OCR is software - not a feature of the scanner.
But for scanning thick old books "depth of field" might be important:
"cis" scanners are not able to reproduce a sharp image from even a small distance, only flat paper.
"ccd" scanners may be better in this regard..

 

[palombian]

I use abbyy finereader for OCR in german and english since like 8 years now and it works fantastic regardless where the images come from: ADF, photos etc

It is indeed a remarkable reader, but I had to remove the version I got with a scanner since it blocked the latest update of Word2013 .

 

[stratman]

It is indeed a remarkable reader, but I had to remove the version I got with a scanner since it blocked the latest update of Word2013 .

Potential workaround... disable abbyy finereader's Services before updating Word and then turn them back on to their original settings as desired.

 

[CakeHole]

Forget about a printer with inbuilt self PDF creation wizardry it will not do the job as good as simple computer software, plus you are going to have to use a computer at some point if you want to store your scans as digital files regardless. A whole good length book of several hundred pages scanned at hig res aint gonna save itself on a tiny SD Card or even worse inbuilt memory in the printer. Printers with their own "PDF" creation functions are typically for the odd document, not hundreds of pages at a time.

If i were you id personal give something like this a try first....
http://www.instructables.com/id/Bargain-Price-Book-Scanner-From-A-Cardboard-Box/
also google for DIY book scanner. Scanning like that with a camera will be so much quicker.

To scan a 200 page book on a regular scan plate on say a reasonable £100 all in one printer is typically going to take you around 20 seconds a page (or to get down to the detail thats 3 pages a minute best case, excluding time turning pages and aligning it on the printer scan bed, and the re-trys you WILL HAVE TO DO, you can do the maths from there as to how long a 200 page book would take<hint best case well over an hour, just to scan, and more likely with mistakes, retrys and turning pages 2-3 hours>, all ill say is good luck with that and rather you than me LOL).
The camera method is probably 5 seconds if that per page, and sooooo much simpler.