Answers.Body: <ol>
  <li><a href="http://finereader.abbyy.com/">ABBY Finereader</a> to a text file</li>
  <li>proofread text file against images</li>
  <li>use <a href="http://www.notetab.com/notetab-pro.php">NoteTab Pro</a> to HTMLize the text</li>
  <li>create ePub structure in <a href="http://www.oxygenxml.com/">Oxygen</a>, cut and paste HTML into ePub files</li>
  <li>view with <a href="http://calibre-ebook.com/">Calibre</a> and <a href="http://www.adobe.com/ca/products/digital-editions.html">Adobe Digital Editions</a></li>
  <li>check with ePub Validator (<a href="http://validator.idpf.org/">http://validator.idpf.org/</a>)</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>If you don't proofread, you're going to get <em>scannos</em> (equivalent of a typo, resulting from imperfect optical character recognition of a document digitized with a scanner; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanno">source</a>).</p>
  
  <p>BTW, I have many disintegrating SF novels, from the 50s onwards, that I fully intend to scan and save ... when I get a round tuit. </p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2013-12-19T02:32:36.373Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2013-12-21T21:20:43.550Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2013-12-21T21:20:43.550Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Zora
Answers.Body: <p><a href="http://scantailor.sourceforge.net/">Scan Tailor</a> is software that helps optimize the images resulted from scan of books and it is free.</p>
  
  <p>Its features include:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Fix orientation</li>
  <li>Split pages (very useful when you scan two pages at once and want to make a single page view ebook)</li>
  <li>Deskew</li>
  <li>Select content (can be used to remove the pagination and any other content that do not make sense in flowable ebook formats)</li>
  <li>Change margins</li>
  <li>Erase spots</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>If you also want to convert these books to epub or similar format, you will need a OCR software and some software like <a href="http://calibre-ebook.com/">Calibre</a> to transform the result text and images into the ebook file.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2014-01-03T04:22:14.297Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2014-01-03T04:38:49.660Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2014-01-03T04:38:49.660Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Allan Veloso
Answers.Body: <p>For commercial software you could try <a href="http://finereader.abbyy.com/">ABBYY FineReader</a> or <a href="http://alternativeto.net/software/abbyy-finereader/">alternatives</a>, or <a href="http://www.nuance.com/for-individuals/by-product/omnipage/index.htm">Omnipage</a> or <a href="http://alternativeto.net/software/omnipage/">alternatives</a>. </p>
  
  <p>Both can output in <a href="http://searchable-pdf.com/content.php?lang=en&amp;c=61">Searchable PDF</a> format, which is useful because if you use OCR on books you will never get 100% the right content without proofreading. </p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2013-12-21T03:54:24.733Z
Answers.Text: ABBYY Fine Reader can output directly to EPUB. You can proof read in Fine Reader before writing it out.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Jeffrey DeLeo
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2013-12-18T23:26:33.900Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2013-12-19T03:41:40.820Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2013-12-19T03:41:40.820Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Eduard Florinescu
Answers.Body: <p>The point of failure in all these toolchains is the OCR. </p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>It is well worth the time spent tracking down clean, undamaged,
  unfaded, non-yellowed copies with a good-quality print impression,
  if this is at all possible.</p></li>
  <li><p>If you can, get a local craft bookbinder to trim the spine off the
  book with a power guillotine, and then use an autofeed scanner on
  the sheets, so that every page image is exactly upright.</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>This maximises the chances of getting a very low error rate in character recognition. Time spent up front saves time spent later making corrections.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2014-01-02T22:09:47.457Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2014-01-02T22:09:47.457Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Peter Flynn
Answers.Body: <p>Scanned texts are most efficiently stored in the DJVU format, if lossy compression is acceptable (if not, use a multi-page format like TIFF). 
  If you convert scans to the DJVU format with OCR recognition enabled, you can extract the OCR-ed text and use if for EPUB generation.</p>
  
  <p>On Linux you can do so using <code>djvutxt</code> to get the text and convert that to EPUB. </p>
  
  <p>A more comfortable way of extraction/conversion is using Calibre to convert the text in the DJVU file to EPUB, this works on Linux and Windows. The Linux version uses <code>djvutxt</code> to extract the text if available, if not it falls back to Python based extraction of the (non-standard compressed) text stream. Windows always uses the slower Python based extraction.</p>
  
  <p>(This is a shameless plug for the calibre plug-in that I wrote a few years ago for exactly this purpose).</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2014-04-12T23:17:33.650Z
Answers.Text: What's wrong with PDF? DJVU gives you files that most people cannot read, and produce questions such as "how do I convert DJVU to PDF?"
Answers.UserDisplayName: zx81
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2018-10-01T00:40:25.390Z
Answers.Text: Zx81 This is not a problem of format, but the distribution of DjVu readers is bad. DjVu is better than PDF. This is a bad education of people. I can tell you why it's better.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Stilgar Dragonclaw
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2013-12-21T12:46:15.070Z
Answers.Text: You can do the conversion e.g with LizardTech's Document Express Professional.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Anthon
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2013-12-21T12:45:50.053Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2013-12-21T13:28:24.653Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2013-12-21T13:28:24.653Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Anthon
Answers.Body: <p>Here is a project that handles every step of the process. </p>
  
  <p>There is an open source project called <a href="http://bookscanner.pbworks.com/w/page/40965440/FrontPage" rel="nofollow">Homer</a> that installs a suite of software to help with this including <strong>ScanTailor</strong> and <strong>tesseract-ocr</strong>. The final result is a searchable PDF. You can copy the text layer from the pdf (or the related html file created in the process) and paste it into an editor like <a href="https://code.google.com/p/sigil/" rel="nofollow">Sigil</a> to create an epub. Then, if you want mobi, convert using <a href="http://calibre-ebook.com/" rel="nofollow">Calibre</a>.</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/9911" rel="nofollow">And there is a paper I wrote that explains the software in more detail.</a></p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2018-10-01T00:45:54.990Z
Answers.Text: And what searchable DjVu as output? It is in options of app?
Answers.UserDisplayName: Stilgar Dragonclaw
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2014-03-10T18:39:35.740Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2016-05-31T17:46:16.073Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2016-05-31T17:46:16.073Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: mattrweaver
Answers.Body: <p>I think Abby Fine reader is avery good software. I have used a localized version (Tamil OCR ) for land record digitization. The success is AS GOOD AS the scanning and conditions of documents. For printed text success is good.(more than 75% error free). Problem is mostly only English OCR is available. If you need languages of your choice you have to ask Abby.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-03-25T01:27:29.923Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2020-03-25T01:27:29.923Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: rameshjey
Answers.Body: <p><a href="https://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/">Tesseract</a> is an open source OCR engine that gives fairly good results. It's my understanding that Google use it for <a href="http://books.google.com">Google Books</a>. <a href="https://wiki.gnome.org/action/show/Apps/OCRFeeder">OCRFeeder</a> is a project for document layout analysis that works as a nice GUI for Tesseract.</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://code.google.com/p/ocropus/">Ocropus</a> is another known open source OCR system.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2013-12-19T01:15:02.020Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2013-12-19T01:15:02.020Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: elias
Body: <p>I have some old sci-fi novels that are out of print and the rights owners are not creating them in ebook form.  Is there any software that facilitates scanning and conversion of these paper books into ebook format?</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2014-01-03T04:26:44.757Z
Comments.Text: Please, be a little more specific. What ebook format do you want to convert to? ePub, pdf, mobi?
Comments.UserDisplayName: Allan Veloso
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2014-01-03T04:28:20.030Z
Comments.Text: PDF is not really an eBook but any other recognized format is fine.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Chad
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2016-05-31T13:03:25.557Z
Comments.Text: Please note: I've done OCR several times. Whenever OCR is done you will have to manually check every word. A spell checker helps but doesn't get every error. Also, [PGDP.net](http://www.pgdp.net/c/) may already have converted your books to EPUB. Check there first.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Bulrush
Tags: <conversion><software><printed>
Title: Is there any software that facilitates scanning of a paper book into an ebook?
UserDisplayName: Chad
ThreadText: # Is there any software that facilitates scanning of a paper book into an ebook?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2013-12-18)
  
  I have some old sci-fi novels that are out of print and the rights owners are not creating them in ebook form. Is there any software that facilitates scanning and conversion of these paper books into ebook format?
  
  **Tags:** conversion, software, printed
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: Please, be a little more specific. What ebook format do you want to convert to? ePub, pdf, mobi?  
  > **username_0**: PDF is not really an eBook but any other recognized format is fine.  
  > **username_2**: Please note: I've done OCR several times. Whenever OCR is done you will have to manually check every word. A spell checker helps but doesn't get every error. Also, [PGDP.net](http://www.pgdp.net/c/) may already have converted your books to EPUB. Check there first.  
  
  ---
  
  ## 8 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_12 on 2013-12-19. Score: 27 | Accepted answer
  
  [Tesseract](https://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/) is an open source OCR engine that gives fairly good results. It's my understanding that Google use it for [Google Books](http://books.google.com). [OCRFeeder](https://wiki.gnome.org/action/show/Apps/OCRFeeder) is a project for document layout analysis that works as a nice GUI for Tesseract.
  
  [Ocropus](https://code.google.com/p/ocropus/) is another known open source OCR system.
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_3 on 2013-12-19. Score: 9
  
  1. [ABBY Finereader](http://finereader.abbyy.com/) to a text file
  2. proofread text file against images
  3. use [NoteTab Pro](http://www.notetab.com/notetab-pro.php) to HTMLize the text
  4. create ePub structure in [Oxygen](http://www.oxygenxml.com/), cut and paste HTML into ePub files
  5. view with [Calibre](http://calibre-ebook.com/) and [Adobe Digital Editions](http://www.adobe.com/ca/products/digital-editions.html)
  6. check with ePub Validator (<http://validator.idpf.org/>)
  
  If you don't proofread, you're going to get *scannos* (equivalent of a typo, resulting from imperfect optical character recognition of a document digitized with a scanner; [source](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanno)).
  
  BTW, I have many disintegrating SF novels, from the 50s onwards, that I fully intend to scan and save ... when I get a round tuit.
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2014-01-03. Score: 9
  
  [Scan Tailor](http://scantailor.sourceforge.net/) is software that helps optimize the images resulted from scan of books and it is free.
  
  Its features include:
  
  * Fix orientation
  * Split pages (very useful when you scan two pages at once and want to make a single page view ebook)
  * Deskew
  * Select content (can be used to remove the pagination and any other content that do not make sense in flowable ebook formats)
  * Change margins
  * Erase spots
  
  If you also want to convert these books to epub or similar format, you will need a OCR software and some software like [Calibre](http://calibre-ebook.com/) to transform the result text and images into the ebook file.
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_4 on 2013-12-18. Score: 9
  
  For commercial software you could try [ABBYY FineReader](http://finereader.abbyy.com/) or [alternatives](http://alternativeto.net/software/abbyy-finereader/), or [Omnipage](http://www.nuance.com/for-individuals/by-product/omnipage/index.htm) or [alternatives](http://alternativeto.net/software/omnipage/).
  
  Both can output in [Searchable PDF](http://searchable-pdf.com/content.php?lang=en&c=61) format, which is useful because if you use OCR on books you will never get 100% the right content without proofreading.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_5**: ABBYY Fine Reader can output directly to EPUB. You can proof read in Fine Reader before writing it out.  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_6 on 2014-01-02. Score: 7
  
  The point of failure in all these toolchains is the OCR.
  
  1. It is well worth the time spent tracking down clean, undamaged,
     unfaded, non-yellowed copies with a good-quality print impression,
     if this is at all possible.
  2. If you can, get a local craft bookbinder to trim the spine off the
     book with a power guillotine, and then use an autofeed scanner on
     the sheets, so that every page image is exactly upright.
  
  This maximises the chances of getting a very low error rate in character recognition. Time spent up front saves time spent later making corrections.
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_7 on 2013-12-21. Score: 7
  
  Scanned texts are most efficiently stored in the DJVU format, if lossy compression is acceptable (if not, use a multi-page format like TIFF).
  If you convert scans to the DJVU format with OCR recognition enabled, you can extract the OCR-ed text and use if for EPUB generation.
  
  On Linux you can do so using `djvutxt` to get the text and convert that to EPUB.
  
  A more comfortable way of extraction/conversion is using Calibre to convert the text in the DJVU file to EPUB, this works on Linux and Windows. The Linux version uses `djvutxt` to extract the text if available, if not it falls back to Python based extraction of the (non-standard compressed) text stream. Windows always uses the slower Python based extraction.
  
  (This is a shameless plug for the calibre plug-in that I wrote a few years ago for exactly this purpose).
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_7**: You can do the conversion e.g with LizardTech's Document Express Professional.  
  > **username_8**: What's wrong with PDF? DJVU gives you files that most people cannot read, and produce questions such as "how do I convert DJVU to PDF?"  
  > **username_9**: username_8 This is not a problem of format, but the distribution of DjVu readers is bad. DjVu is better than PDF. This is a bad education of people. I can tell you why it's better.  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_10 on 2014-03-10. Score: 5
  
  Here is a project that handles every step of the process.
  
  There is an open source project called [Homer](http://bookscanner.pbworks.com/w/page/40965440/FrontPage) that installs a suite of software to help with this including **ScanTailor** and **tesseract-ocr**. The final result is a searchable PDF. You can copy the text layer from the pdf (or the related html file created in the process) and paste it into an editor like [Sigil](https://code.google.com/p/sigil/) to create an epub. Then, if you want mobi, convert using [Calibre](http://calibre-ebook.com/).
  
  [And there is a paper I wrote that explains the software in more detail.](http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/9911)
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_9**: And what searchable DjVu as output? It is in options of app?  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_11 on 2020-03-25. Score: -1
  
  I think Abby Fine reader is avery good software. I have used a localized version (Tamil OCR ) for land record digitization. The success is AS GOOD AS the scanning and conditions of documents. For printed text success is good.(more than 75% error free). Problem is mostly only English OCR is available. If you need languages of your choice you have to ask Abby.
  
  
  ---
  
  