I have a hard copy manuscript that I typed decades ago using a manual typewriter. Now I would like to get it into some form of digital document so I can get it into my computer and edit it. I don't want to retype the whole thing, and I don't own a scanner or printer. It's currently in Australia and I'll be making a trip there in October and want to bring it back with me to Thailand. So I'm thinking I could take it to one of those copy/scan/print shops and pay them to do it.

So what's the best option? The best file format? Obviously I don't want them to scan every page as jpgs because I want to get into the text. I'd prefer getting it in done in one file. I forget how many pages, but say there are 500 pages, then I don't really want to be given 500 pdfs or 500 seperate doc files.

What is the best way for one of these shops to do it for me? I don't use Microsoft Word, but have Softmaker Office and Open Office.

Each page would need to be scanned.

You might just aswell keep the jpeg as an archive, what I would do is to simultaneously OCR it at the same time as scanning. Then compile a continuous text file. It wouldn't be so difficult, you would have a python script that would watch a folder and compile the text file.

You can keep all the jpegs as a zip file, or a CBR file, which is a comic format, a zip archive of JPEGs are read in order.

The other source file, will be a txt file, you can format however you want. word, OpenOffice equivalent, once you have worked on it, it would be easy to format as an ePub or pdf.

Let me know if you approach any shop to do it, I think they would probably over charge - My missus could sit there and scan it or if you want to buy a cheap scanner, I can let you know how to proceed.

42 minutes ago, recom273 said:

Each page would need to be scanned.

You might just aswell keep the jpeg as an archive, what I would do is to simultaneously OCR it at the same time as scanning. Then compile a continuous text file. It wouldn't be so difficult, you would have a python script that would watch a folder and compile the text file.

You can keep all the jpegs as a zip file, or a CBR file, which is a comic format, a zip archive of JPEGs are read in order.

The other source file, will be a txt file, you can format however you want. word, OpenOffice equivalent, once you have worked on it, it would be easy to format as an ePub or pdf.

Let me know if you approach any shop to do it, I think they would probably over charge - My missus could sit there and scan it or if you want to buy a cheap scanner, I can let you know how to proceed.

Thanks for your interesting reply. I won't be doing anything until November when I get back from Oz with the manuscript. Then I'll talk to a few of those local print shops and see what they offer and quote me. If it gets too expensive then I'll guess I'll consider buying a scanner/printer to do myself. I actually had a nice Brother scanner/printer some years ago but I gave it away. I remember making a pdf copy of a book I had published. Anyway, I'll rethink everything in Nov'. Your reply has been helpful.

9 minutes ago, grain said:

Thanks for your interesting reply. I won't be doing anything until November when I get back from Oz with the manuscript. Then I'll talk to a few of those local print shops and see what they offer and quote me. If it gets too expensive then I'll guess I'll consider buying a scanner/printer to do myself. I actually had a nice Brother scanner/printer some years ago but I gave it away. I remember making a pdf copy of a book I had published. Anyway, I'll rethink everything in Nov'. Your reply has been helpful.

Yeah I dont know what the windows equivalent is .. I would use vuscan, you can reprogram the buttons on the scanner with that.

Workflow would be, put your page down, press a button, the page would scan and open the jpeg in OCRkit, but tbh, all AI models feature some kind of OCR facility these days.

I would configure OCRKit to automatically read the jpeg, copy that text to the clipboard and then get the script to paste to a text file, using the scan number as a page header, so you could cross reference if there was an issue in the future.

Mate, here is my way doing such: visit a Thai printer shop, ask them to scan the document carefully into a (single) pdf file. For easily readable typed text 300 dpi resolution should be enough; use 600 dpi if there are colour photos or pictures. Give them a couple of days to do a flawless job. They can email the resulting file to you or save it on a USB stick you provide.

In your case (English text) it's very easy to OCR the file and export it to .docx format for SoftMaker. The best app for the task is Abby FineReader, though Foxit PF Editor Pro is also very good. PM me if need some safe sourcing info.

Edited 17 minutes ago17 min by aronin
typo fix