Is there a scanner that can auto-crop mixed-size book pages without a preview scan?
Asked 12/15/2010
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I need to scan large volumes of books quickly for web use only, so high resolution is not important. The pages are from many different books and are not standard sizes, so I’m looking for a scanner that can automatically detect the page size and crop each scan correctly without requiring a separate preview pass or manual editing afterward. Ideally it would also de-skew pages and let me output smaller web-friendly files. Is this best handled by a sheet-fed document scanner or is there another practical option?
Originally by Ralph. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Ralph
15y ago
2 Answers
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One of the Canon DR range of page feed scanners will do the job. They come with CapturePerfect software and will crop as well as de-skew. There is a price to be paid though. You will need to guillotine off the book spine so that you can feed the pages into the scanner. Your neighbourhood printer will have a nice industrial size guillotine that will make short work of removing the spine.
The alternative of using a flat bed scanner (to preserve the book) is simply not practical if you have a large number of books, it will take for ever. I have been down this route when I converted a client's large reference book collection to be stored on a server. A useful tip is to keep a bottle of isopropyl alcohol handy as from time to time you will need to clean the platens and rollers to remove residual glue that they pick up from the guillotined edges of the pages. The glue has a tendency to bleed away from the spine.
The software has an option of creating two images from one scan, allowing you to keep a high resolution as well as a low resolution image.
Originally by user1368. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1368
15y ago
0
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For high-volume work, a sheet-fed document scanner is the practical solution. Models in Canon’s DR document-scanner range were recommended because their bundled CapturePerfect software can automatically crop and de-skew pages during scanning, which is much faster than using a flatbed.
The main tradeoff is that books usually need to be separated into loose pages first, typically by cutting off the spine, so the pages can be fed through the scanner. If you need to preserve the books intact, a flatbed is possible but generally too slow for large batches.
For this kind of job, focus on a document scanner with automatic size detection, auto-crop, and de-skew features rather than high resolution. Output resizing for web use is usually better handled in software after scanning, though some scanning software may offer preset output sizes.
If you scan a lot, expect occasional cleaning of rollers and glass/platen areas to keep feeding and image quality consistent.
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