I'm planning to purchase a new scanner sometime in the next few weeks, and am looking for comments and recommendations. My current scanner is an HP Scanjet 5P, flatbed-type, SCSI-connected. It works OK, but it's difficult to scan books that won't lie flat when opened (no binding "valley"). It isn't supported under Windows XP, so I have to keep switching my system back and forth between Windows 2000 and WinXP (drive racks are so cool for this - no dual-boot fussing). My current scanning/OCR software is Abby Finereader Sprint 4.0, which uses HP's Deskscan V2.9 software to actually acquire the image to be OCR'ed. For my purposes this combo works just fine and gives excellent results. (I've played with Abby Professional 6.0, but found that it kept "getting in the way," so I've stuck with Sprint.) Having said all that, it's the fact that the scanner, plus the Deskscan software, is SLOW, taking about 45 seconds or so to go from the start of the "Preview" scan to the finished "Final" scan of a page pair. After that, the actual OCR and saving of the resulting text file takes only a few seconds. Including turning the page, a single scan takes about a minute, which I've decided is too slow to keep on with. (In fact, it's the time investment that's keeping me from doing some of the thicker books I have. Scanning is BORING, and I can't face an 800-page book with my current equipment.) So, I'm looking for a scanner that's considerably faster than my current one, will handle stiffly-bound books without having to force them flat, is USB-connected, and works under Windows XP. I've Googled "book scanner", but most of the hits have been for those big, professional scanners with lights, an overhead camera, automatic page turning, etc., that seem to cost in the $20K-$40K range - a definite overkill for my needs. This search also pointed me to the Plustek Opticbook 3600, which I found mentioned in this forum's March 2005 archives, in the "Scanning/OCR Tips" thread. Comments/recommendations on this or other candidate scanners? Thanks, Al
Al Haines (shaw) writes:
I'm planning to purchase a new scanner sometime in the next few weeks, and am looking for comments and recommendations.
I have an Opticbook 3600, and I strongly recommend it. It has three built-in scan modes (black&white, greyscale, and color) tied to scanner buttons, so you can change scan modes in the middle of a batch scan process. It has Abbyy Finereader Sprint 5.0, but I've never used it, since I had FR6 and upgraded to FR8. Since I'm often scanning more fragile works, I usually scan a page at a time, and I get about 6 pages per minute in 300 DPI black & white, 5 PPM in 300 DPI greyscale, and 1 or 2 PPM in 300 DPI color. I usually batch scan using the Opticbook's book pilot, do some post-processing, and then run it through FR. I bought mine for about $250 USD. Since I use the Opticbook's book pilot to batch scan, I set up a preview image once, and then I'm usually turning the page and repositioning during the time it sends the data to the computer. With the book pilot, you can set it up so that it automatically rotates the image for either scan a page at a time (rotating the book 180 degrees for each page), or CCW 90 degrees for double page scans. Of course, if you're scanning an oversize book, you'll want to be using page at a time anyway. If you're using FR, I think you're better off using the FR twain interface (which I don't use), because you can set it to scan the margins of your book (no preview mode, so you need to know or guess the size) and then scan multiple pages, with background OCRing. With the FR twain interface, you can't automatically switch between scan modes though. Right now I'm scanning a book with a lot of color illustrations, so it's really nice to press the grey button for my normal greyscale scan, and hit the color button when I hit a page with a colour illustration. You can also use it for double page scans, like a normal flat bed scanner. I usually don't because I think I get better results (albeit at half the scan speed) with single page mode. Downsides: It's not SANE compliant, so you have to use Windows (not a problem for you, but it's a show stopper for others). The usable scan starts about 3 mm from the edge of the scanner, so that if you have really narrow gutters on the book, you will still have problems. The depth of field is only so-so, so the curvature with thick book with narrow gutters will make the edge very dark, and sometimes unusable. Greyscale scanning is better than B&W scanning for this.
participants (2)
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Al Haines (shaw) -
Bruce Albrecht