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dandelioncottage · 02-14-2011, 12:49 PM

I have quite a collection of old, copyright-free, children's books that I'd love to convert to read on my NOOKColor, just for my own use. I haven't been able to find any of them available on the Internet, probably just because they are so obscure that you can hardly find them in hardcover anymore.

I'm on a Mac, O.S. 10.5.8, and have a Canon PIXMA MG5220 Scanner. Would I need OCR software? Is Abbyy Fine Reader a good choice? How about Velociraptor?

Or as a fast typist (over 100 wpm on a regular typewriter, so presumably faster on a computer keyboard) would I be better off retyping the books, and if so, into what format? I don't have MS Word, just Apple Pages or TextEdit.

Is my goal to turn whatever I type into a PDF and then convert that to an ePub document in Calibre?

Sorry for all the questions--this is all very new to me. Any advice or direction to a site where this is all explained would be much appreciated. TIA!

02-14-2011, 12:49 PM	#1
dandelioncottage Abibliophobe Posts: 421 Karma: 4333638 Join Date: Dec 2010 Device: iPad Mini 2 64 gb, Nook Glowlight, iPad 4 (128 gb)	Scanning old books for my NOOKColor I have quite a collection of old, copyright-free, children's books that I'd love to convert to read on my NOOKColor, just for my own use. I haven't been able to find any of them available on the Internet, probably just because they are so obscure that you can hardly find them in hardcover anymore. I'm on a Mac, O.S. 10.5.8, and have a Canon PIXMA MG5220 Scanner. Would I need OCR software? Is Abbyy Fine Reader a good choice? How about Velociraptor? Or as a fast typist (over 100 wpm on a regular typewriter, so presumably faster on a computer keyboard) would I be better off retyping the books, and if so, into what format? I don't have MS Word, just Apple Pages or TextEdit. Is my goal to turn whatever I type into a PDF and then convert that to an ePub document in Calibre? Sorry for all the questions--this is all very new to me. Any advice or direction to a site where this is all explained would be much appreciated. TIA!