Make an eBook From Your Own Book Collection 

I agree, I work at a major airline and the sheer number of books left behind is unbelievable. you could almost open a book store

@@timothy5974 I could imagine that "store" being mostly copies of Twilight or 50 Shades at one time. I never thought I would leave one but I did once many years ago, RAMA 3. The only reason I tucked it away is because I finished it. I thought someone else might have picked it up but probably got chucked. I don't blame them!

I don't give a shit about physical books (unless they are +100 years older), so, godspeed.

These are your books. You can even burn them if you like. Some people destroy things worth few months of food for a whole African village and people are laughing. 🤷‍♂️

The book already exists, so it's already waste in waiting. It makes no difference if it's disposed of now or later.

Thanx

What are the other steps? 👀

Thank you

*Thank you!* I mean get to the point already right?! Almost 20min and you summed it up in 3 lines of text… again *Thank you*

That actually sounds truly amazing. If my duplex scanner hadn’t taken a dump 2 weeks ago, with a 10x10 storage unit, mostly full of books 🤦🏻‍♀️

you shouldn't date teens

You're welcome. Decluttering paper and old books around the house is super satisfying! It's a great scanner, you'll find so many uses for it.

Over 600.. that's awesome!!

I should add that the Fujitsu software has been updated a lot since this was taken and they've added more apps too. I find the support (even on a Mac) to be excellent. And I know what you mean. For me, getting rid of (scanning/recycling) paper clutter and worn out books is like an obsession.

I'm retired, what else to do with my time?

At first I went kicking and screaming into the digital book world, I liked holding and smelling a real book, but as I got use to the digital search aspect I fell in love with it and dumped all books except a select few. I've toyed with the idea of doing a video on how I convert books into pdf's, there are a lot of tips and tricks to getting a good copy. Thanks for the kind response.

Yeah, in a way now individual people are becoming historian's, collectors, archivers. Maybe in a thousand years something save by us will have an important impact to someone digging through our collections.

Are you still alive? Times have again changed lmao

Thanks! I love scanning books (for some odd reason).

+5C07sL1f3 Hi there Scott. Can you please tell me the average file size of a gray scale book? I'd like to buy that scanner but it's a little bit expensive for me.

There are cheaper document scanners out there, like Canon, Epson, etc. The average file size for a paperback book (the way I like to scan them) is average between 20-50MB. That is a very thick paperback book on the high end. It might seem like a lot but it'll look just like a paperback book on an iPad or whatever. You can OCR the file if you want to make a smaller size file but it won't look like a book and always has errors. And, modern readers can handle tons of files at that size these day.

I've been on the look for a bigger external monitor for my laptop. Yours [on the video] sound great [and in case you've got yoursef a better screen than this.. then] - Could you tell me how many inch it is and perhaps also amazon-link it to me?

Sadly, it's just a 720p TV I got from Best Buy. I was using it as a monitor which turned out not so bad really when editing 720p video. I now use an LG I got from COSTCO. It works better at being a real PC monitor. best!

Thank you!

I've never attempted this but if you make your text searchable one can select all the text they want. The results may be a bit messy but I suppose it can be done.

Dulce Reyes You can try this program, it says that it converts the text to a searchable text so you can select it.

Look into OCR software that "reads" PDFs. They can then be converted to audio format.

Looks like a nice printer. You don't need my exact scanner but if yours does multiple sheet scanning that would make it easier I'm sure. Also, most scanners come with software that can read the text, otherwise it's easy to obtain. I keep my books in searchable PDF form but software can be used to create an eBook from that as well. As far as I know a Kindle can read a PDF just fine and be searchable. I believe Kindle also has it's own format for eBooks so you'd need the right software to take it that far.

Yes, that's what duplex scan is for.

It comes with OCR software and works great, pretty much the way you described. Makes an OCR layer on top of the PDF. I did another video on same channel that covers this if interested.

Sure, if you don't mind taking a picture of each page and then finding software to combine each picture into PDFs, putting all the files into one for book form. I'm sure it can be done, not saying it's impossible. If you find a great working solution I'd love to know.

@@yellowbench1158 Oki Doki

On a Mac it's a drag and drop affair using Preview. Are you using Windows? I'm sure it can be done but I'm not as familiar.

I'd say it's the "fastest" solution still. Others, even today, involve just taking a picture of each page. That to me seems like a huge amount of time. People keep telling me of some kind of miracle scanner out there but I don't see it. Or they are just too expensive (like thousands...). If you do find a better solution I'd truly love to know. :-)

ScanSnap ix500. Not sure if they make that one anymore.

It seems to support multiple doc scanning, how well it goes through a stack of pages I do not know. I found this help page on HP's site explaining more: support.hp.com/us-en/product/hp-laserjet-pro-m1213nf-m1219nf-multifunction-printer-series/5071505/model/4075454/document/c04788799

Linda R hi and yes I have the same scanner and it still works perfect. There’s been a large software update to it as well from Fujitsu which is different now from the video. Works well. I’ve found it to be well supported. I know there are other scanners out there now. I haven’t kept up with the market really but just make sure it has a deep paper feed for a stack of sheets. The less you have to fill it the better. Some get jammed on old paper more than others. Mine was the best rated at the time but not the cheapest. I chose it for the speed. It might be overkill for some but I’ve never regretted it. The other positive is how they’ve kept updating and supporting the software even for a Mac. Can now scan straight to phone or cloud too. Not trying to sell it to you but it’s been a great experience. Let me know what you decide on.

@@yellowbench1158 Hi Scott, thanks so much for your feedback. I bought the one you have i.e. the IX500. Apparently Fujitsu has discontinued it but from the feedback reviews that I've read by yourself and many others on Amazon and a couple of other sites, this one was clearly the winner (even over their newest model to replace it). The company I bought it from said that it will still be supported for several years and that's more than enough for me so I'm not concerned. I am also considering paying for a cloud storage service (maybe Adobe cloud since the scanner will save the book as a PDF) more for the peace of mind of never having to worry about computer or external hard drive crashes. May I ask if you did that as well (i.e. use a cloud storage service to store your books) and if yes, who would you recommend? BTW: thank you so much for this video. I've had my Kindle for about 5 years and I've hung onto my books because I wasn't about to throw or give them away but neither was i about to spend thousands buying them all again either and there are many that aren't available in digital format even now but having boxes upon boxes upon boxes of books taking up space and not getting read because I just couldn't be bothered looking through them, also became annoying so finding your video on what to do has saved my sanity. You have no idea how much I appreciate you taking the time to make it, THANK YOU! I've been told my scanner should arrive by the day after tomorrow at the latest, which is just in time for me to start on the weekend. It's a daunting task given how many books I have but the thought of them all being digitized makes me soooooo happy.

@@lindar6569 WOW Linda, sounds like you have a project ahead of you (hours of fun). I also made another video about making the text of the PDF searchable when scanning which wasn't covered in this one if interested. For cloud services I use iCloud because I use Apple stuff but for you on a Kindle I'd probably look into Amazon's cloud. From what I understand if you have a Prime account you get free Amazon cloud space that should link right up to your Kindle. If you don't have a Prime account you may still be able to get it. I myself don't have a Kindle but if I did I'd look for the cloud service that works best with that Kindle. Such as, after you have the scanned book on your computer, you'd be able to drop it right into you cloud account and it should auto-pop up right in the kindle, etc. Something like that, I hope it's that easy for you as the iCloud is for me. Another hint, as for your collection: Start with a book you don't care about so much as the first few scans will be rough but after a few you'll get to a setting and process you like and that will become faster and faster. After a few books you'll be a scan-master. :-)

@@yellowbench1158 Hi Scott, yeah I do have a big job but I'm keeping the end goal in mind i.e. all my books being available to read once digitized. I will certainly check out your video on making the text of the PDF searchable, thanks for letting me know. Also, thank you for the hint on starting with a book I don't care about so much because it was needed. I practiced a lot yesterday on tearing up the book (it doesn't take long once you get used to it but the first few times wasn't a easy as I thought it would be) and working out the scanner itself (how to put the pages in so they come out in order and up the right way and creating profiles and everything else to do with creating a digitized book). It took a lot of patience and practice and while I think that I roughly have a good idea now, I still expect the first few real attempts to be less than perfect. I asked a computer friend for their opinion on which cloud service I should use to store all my books and videos and he said that he doesn't trust cloud services because of privacy issues and instead suggested that I buy a couple of external hard drives (a main and a back up). His reason is that the cloud service provider could try and take down all the content that I upload for copyright reasons, unless I can prove that I own it but I can't because most of it was purchased years ago. I'm now unsure about using a cloud service but thought I should let you know just in case you also want to buy an external hard drive for backup so you don't lose all your books if that should happen. Thank you once again for all your help and advice Scott, it's been very much appreciated :-)

@@digchri2 Hello there, I'm a year too late to this conversation but if you read this hopefully my input will help. Yes, your friend might be right in that your data might be deleted due to the unfair so called copyrights imposed by the greedy. There is also another issue, that being that you need internet to access your data. This is a severe problem. So as your friend suggested, and I will too, I'd recommend internal and external hard drives. I myself have 3 external ones and 1 internal. They are relatively cheap now so I'd say this is the best option. You can even buy 1 terabyte cards for your phone. That's like having your local library in the palm of your hand. Not only that but you can share your collection with anyone else in a few minutes. An entire library worth of books being exchanged in an hour or so, that's truly amazing. We sure have come a long way.

Alexandru Barna actually I tried hard to shorten it. Haha

That's rude. You're speaking about a real person with real feelings.

@@daithiocinnsealach1982 Oh wow! It's almost like the internet is a place that exists inside of critical thought. Silly me, how obtuse to make such a rediculus assumption.

Alexandru Barna is that something you’re likely to say?

@@yellowbench1158 is this video something I'd likely recommend?

You’re so very welcome!

A Vargs about 3-4 minutes tops.

@@yellowbench1158 Thanks! Looking forward to streamlining this like you've done with better equipment. I did this once with the scansap s1100 but that is single sided scanning. Took me a few hours and then used the android app "@voice" read aloud reader in conjuction with Google TTS to export an audio file of the entire book. Then played the now converted audio book using "listen audiobook" which has custom skip features (useful with a Pebble) and custom cover art per file. Granted it was about 3-4 hours of work but my hands are occupied at work but can listen to books /music all day. Knocked the nearly 354 page book in 2 weeks.

I’m with you there

thank you. I got mine from Amazon

Well, people wanted to see what it was like (for this solution).. not to say there aren't other ones.

Yes, it can be searchable and highlightable when OCR software is applied to your scanned book. It goes through and converts the scan (which is really just a picture at that point) into text. That is how a lot of ebooks are created. There can be errors with it but it's not bad. I just like the look of the scanned page and makes me feel I'm still reading that book so I didn't bother to OCR each book, although I could later at any time. Hope that helps.

Yes, you can easily make most text searchable and highlightable. I show how to do this in another video..

@@yellowbench1158 One option I have begun using is Evernote. It makes all of my PDFs searchable, within Evernote. I will look at your other videos to see what other ideas you have. Very nice video quality, BTW.

@@PastorJakeErvin Yes, Evernote is a great idea if search-ability wasn't turned on for the original scan. Best!

If you scan your favourite books and send it to your friends, is this considered violation of the copyright?

Hi. Yeah, I was surprised his solution was to destroy the book when very viable solutions exist that don't include that step nor do they require a purchase of scanner hardware. I started using it when I noticed the copier at the library was always busy and I was doing some quick-turn-around research. I loaded CamScanner on my smartphone. (There are competitor apps out there, but in my estimation, CamScanner is the best.) It is easy to quickly scan multiple successive pages into a single document project. The software does the auto-correct alignment, cropping suggestions, lighting, and more. Another solution: Both Google Drive and Evernote have options to upload an image and they will automatically convert it to editable text.

I use apps like that as well, there are a lot of good ones for docs, etc. For a book though, I can scan a 1000+ pages in a few minutes with this solution. Are you really going to take a picture for each page of a book hundreds of times??

Yellow Bench you scanned the books to Like a kindle scenario where you can read them. It looks great. However, could I use this device to scan some old electrical textbooks and manuals so I could locate information faster from a contents page? I have a lot of old information that if possible I could scan and keep on a USB drive which would be a tremendous help when working away from home etc

NNGGAARRYY, YES! There is an OCR component in there where it will stay a PDF and look just like the original page yet be searchable and highlightable. Maybe I should do a video on that..

That's great. I just need to find the money to buy one. Also I do not have a CD-Rom on my MAC. Will that be a potential stumbling block to install or are the downloadable drivers pretty good? many many thanks for your help and time

Yes

@@yellowbench1158 ok thanks

I have seriously tried this once. No one wanted it. Honestly!

@@yellowbench1158 Too bad. It worked for me. I did this for textbooks. I think you are doing it for novels. Novels are considerably cheaper than textbooks. If a book costs less than $10, I have found it is just not worth re-selling.

@@ninjanerdstudent6937 I can see that working for textbooks.. and what a great idea too!

@@yellowbench1158 Looseleaf textbooks are always cheaper than bound textbook, so you may as well give the books another life. Supposedly, you could have rigged your novels in some way to donate it to an indigent school in your area. Let someone else have a chance to read. It just looks so wasteful to recycle or discard it.

@@yellowbench1158 I noticed you use iBooks. I suggest you use Notability which allows you to highlight and write in the margins. It's really one of the only good paid-apps, as well as Scanner Pro. They were both free apps-of-the-week many years ago. Notability also does an auto-backup of all your books and notes to a cloud drive of your choice, and it has saved me because iCloud once deleted all my books and notes, but I recovered it.

It scans through quickly, imo. When I was scanning a lot I was just eyeballing like a ¼ inch stack of pages at a time without thinking too hard. Once you get into it goes fast and done before you know. The scanning SW puts it all together for you as long as you scan in order. Once you identify a scanner you want you can look up it's specific details easily enough.

@@yellowbench1158 but how many pages can it fit because my books are 300 pages to 500pages can i stack all of them at once and it will scan them or do i have to do it in intervals of 20 pages at a time which means i would have to keep loading the scanner and loading it for hours.

@@billwilliams6338 I've done plenty that large.. doesn't take hours. Even 25~ pages at a time you'd be surprised once you get in the rhythm how fast it goes. I'm talking minutes. There are faster scanners out there I'm sure but for my price point it's fast enough for me. I just did a few a day until it was done. I could do a 300 pg book in less than 10 min. 15 if including the cutting. You should time it on the video to see how fast the pages shoot through. Once that stack is done just pop in another and hit the blue button and it picks right up. You only have to go back to the PC screen when it's complete to name it, etc. If the stack is too thick you'll feel it as not all pages go in so you hold it for the round. For me it's sort of zen so I'm not timing it.

@@yellowbench1158 when looking at a scanner specification where do you find the FAST TIME like how long it takes to scan in a page what is that called in the scanner specs? Because my HP scanner take for ever to scan pages and i can only do 10 to 20 pages at time autofeeding it which is a pain to scan a book. I'm trying to find a scanner that will scan 300 to 500 pages at once and autofeeds it for me and scans really really fast. I didn't see in your video a scanning TRAY that can hold 300 to 500pages because alot of time the scanner will get stuck and clogged from scanning to many pages in the tray when autofeeding it. But I'm trying to find a cheap scanner that can scan fast and can scan books 500pages. Do you know any scanners that can do this please?

@@billwilliams6338 Sorry, I'm not aware of any cheap scanners that will take 300+ pages at a time.

I know what you mean. I think of my fingers every time I use that cutter. ;-) And, just to be clear, all the books I've scanned have ended up in the paper recycler bin. What the recycler does with them I have no idea. haha

Thanks for the feedback. Although OCR when scanning is literally a check box I'd love to show how it looks when on a device.

Max, just uploaded a video on the subject of search ability. enjoy!

Sara The Persian Kitty they discontinued that model but it was a couple hundred. The pages go quick so 500 pages would be minutes.

Scanning a PDF will look nearly exactly like the page in your hand. If you are scanning into ebook format the text recognition that came with the scanner I think is great: a goofed up word every now and again depending on how clear the print on that page was. That's why I opt for my book scans to use PDF format but made "searchable" so the page looks identical to the paper. I go more into that on another video on my channel.

ix500

R. Indra I didn’t need to take it anywhere.

I use similar apps for single page documents but I'd love to know how you can quickly create a 500 page book? Often these apps don't "book-bind", etc.

It's a little late, but if like to know too! 😁

Yes

Yes but each page will become a separate picture, not a book, and be treated as such.

Calibre is amazing.. I have 150 thousand books in mine.

Phuong it now lives in iPad heaven with the rest of the collection, peacefully.

HAHA, because I'm evil? not sure what that is

👌👌

Not sure. I've never sold them, only scanned them for my own reading.

Thanks for the info.

+Niramsor N. ... I don't think selling scanned books are legal. The book belongs to the author. Same with any other forms of media. Burning a CD and selling the burn CD, don't think that's legal. Copying a DVD or blu ray movie and selling the copied DVD or blu ray, don't think that's legal.

Yup, selling scanned books would be blatant copyright violation; definitely illegal.

It's not even legal to share them, let alone sell them, unless maybe a specific book is no longer covered under copyright.

Here you go: selfstudymaterials.com/2017/05/07/barrons-essentail-words-ielts-pdf-audio/

That was the point. Think about it...

Hey Doug-E-Fresh! I think this video has started a societal upheaval as I've challenged the norms of how one just might enjoy a good book. Much like our political landscape, people either hate this video or they think, "It's OK I guess." And there is another unintended affect it has on people... the part where I rip a book drives them wild OR the fact that I had it in my heart and soul to completely waste 15 mins of their precious COVID quarantine lives. As you can see to this day it's still hard for me to "just get to the point" hehe.. see? Extremely polarizing. Regardless, it's been fun over the years to either help people out with their scanning questions or banter about what an evil time-wasting book-ripper I am. 😈

Yellow Bench The funny part was I was searching for how to do that and I found your video and as soon as I started watching it I bust up laughing. I was like hey I know that guy

@@DougLarsonVideoThat is funny because I did this from a convo we had years ago to just make a video about something so it's genesis came form you. haha (Hey everyone, this guy is to blame!) Others have recommended to skip ahead to 7:25 so feel free. I made another video as a followup to that about making the text searchable and selectable as well.

Yellow Bench I get blamed for everything. 😳

@@DougLarsonVideo Haha, well it's nice to know I'm up in search results although I don't make a dime, etc. Are your videos killing it? Hope you are excellent

And that is.....

You could take a picture of each page or use a flatbed scanner. It takes a long time though. The solution I chose was because I wanted to reduce my paperbacks quickly, yet keep them too. Hope that helps.

I've donated plenty. I don't like reading yellow stinky old books and neither does the library. Pulp wasn't meant to last that long. Why not PRESERVE them?? ..while the pulp gets recycled.

Cowboy Lemonhead did I destroy or set free? That is a question for the ages...

Yellow Bench set free? I mean it’s your property so you can do what you want but I don’t feel you can say you’re a person who loves books. I really thought you had a solution to a problem that we people who respect books and have a gazillion of them actually have

Cowboy Lemonhead I guess the difference is how we define “book”. For me it’s the story on the page, not the paper. I want that story to go with me and be backlit. Most books I did were old, stinky-yellow, falling apart and not available as ebooks. I don’t like to read such paper and resell markets consider them worthless. Why not quick scan and recycle? There are scanners for page turning but that would take you a lifetime. That’s the trade-off.

Prajwal Dhule Unique Classes.... Yeah really, didn't even watch it, got bored with the life story. Why do people have to drag sh*t out like this.

@@AdaptivePhenix haha, well um... sorry I'm not as good as you are at YT.

@@yellowbench1158 Don't mind them. I really liked your reasoning. As a fellow book digitizer (will be soon), your motivation resonated with my desire to turn my heavy and spacious collection into less than a gram in weight and less than 5 inches squared of space.

You're almost 5 years and 196 comments late with that tip.

So you can digest it.

But what about the people who thanked me for showing them "the whole thing?" Ripping up books is a can-o-worms either way so I felt I had to defend it for the greater good. Would I do it differently now? Sure, but that was me like a 5 years ago. I would feel worse about it if there wasn't a way to jump ahead a bit, which YT does provide.

some people like it evidently

that's right, world on my plate

You forget the books live on, the paper gets recycled. Such as life. I don't know anyone who has that much time to take a pic of each of hundreds of thousands of pages. That would create JPEGs where I need PDFs. Plus, I don't think a lot of people are really doing this, but they do want to see what might be involved. Relax bro.

Yellow Bench I respect your opinion and see your point. Here's another option for you: sell the book and buy the ebook. Or just buy the ebook to begin with. Anyway, they ARE your books and you're obviously free to do with them as you will. I hope you see this as a philosophical exchange and nothing more, as I do. Take care.

Gregory Short I agree with you , I'm currently looking for a solution for some classic old books that cannot be found anywhere else and I want to make a copy in pdf or ebook maybe, but I would never destroy them.

Books have no value in and of themselves. It's the content they contain that's valuable, and the content is being saved. It's also much easier to share an ebook; If the book is out of print and unobtainable, I'd have no problem sharing it with my friends.

I think it is incredibly wasteful to destroy a book. Just by the ebook. Or take the pictures with your cell. Just digitalized one tonight. 20pgs in less than 30 mins.

The few that were available, I did.

but think how much time I saved you later.........

Bored people are boring

Gerald Baez the point was right there in the title 😂

For the greater good