looking for privacy friendly quality ereader

[Marinolino]

Originally Posted by shalym

I agree that PDFs aren't great. However, that's not what you asked. You asked if it was legal. It is. You can even buy books from Amazon and have them sent directly to 1dollarscan.

Shari

Pdfs are as great for me today as they were ten years ago, it takes me about three hours to convert a thousand page text book into a small & fast 20 MB pdf file (ocr layer behind the page using Acrobat's Clearscan mode) with 100% text & page layout accuracy, they are considerably lighter and thinner than paper books (using newer 8" or 10" size eink readers and tablets) and if my pdf reader allows I can open (read) several pdfs simultaneously on the same device, I can search them, annotate them (as I would a paper book), hyperlink them, bookmark them, paginate them, listen to them, change the text & page size by reducing/enlarging the empty margins, by reading in portraite/landscape, by using two-column mode etc.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by mirage

So I do prefer to be as anonymous as I can be when I get whatever ereader I end up buying. Not because I'm stealing anything, not because I don't want Kobo or whatever entity to know my name, but because I prefer to make the effort to maintain some semblance of control over what I do and who gets to know about it and profit from it, just like I eat good food and take care of myself even though I won't live forever no matter how hard I try.

That is entirely reasonable.

The OP here was mercilessly attacked. But she/he was honest, respectful, and principled.

I think if you read through the thread again, nobody jumped on the OPs back until it was made clear that 'shared copies' of books would be downloaded (notice my attempt to remain neutral and not use the 'loaded words' the OP complained about). That's what got everyone piling on.

And, as others mentioned, the OP is still here and still posting.

Originally Posted by mirage

People speculated that when people post about wanting privacy with respect to ereaders that it must be because they want to steal books. That's not a fair or accurate conjecture to make, which is why I went on so long about it all. People's motivations about privacy issues aren't usually because they feel the need to hide something sordid. Quite the contrary.

I think one person made those speculations. The desire for privacy is well and good. But there have to be some sort of limits just because of how things work. The fact that you do buy your ebooks and so on shows that you agree with me.

By all means, protect your privacy. But when it gets to the point that you won't even use a false email address to register a device and you don't have a bank account (which I think was mentioned at some point?) and you aren't planning to read freely available PD books, then how do you get books for your reader?

Once you get that privacy-minded, then ebooks just aren't likely a viable thing for you.

[mirage]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Once you get that privacy-minded, then ebooks just aren't likely a viable thing for you.

Thanks, ZodWallop, for the consideration of all the details.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by shalym

I agree that PDFs aren't great. However, that's not what you asked. You asked if it was legal. It is. You can even buy books from Amazon and have them sent directly to 1dollarscan.

Shari

I got the answer that it is legal to scan pBooks. Now I am saying that 1dollarscan sends back PDF and that's nearly useless.

[Marinolino]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I got the answer that it is legal to scan pBooks. Now I am saying that 1dollarscan sends back PDF and that's nearly useless.

You can then easily convert pdf (or its exported images) to epub, html, word etc. using Abbyy Finerader 15 or some earlier version 14, 13 ...

https://help.abbyy.com/en-us/finerea.../epub_settings

Nowadays there are probably many book scanning services around the globe like these two from USA that would convert the scans to any file format:

http://www.blueleaf-book-scanning.com
http://bookscan.us/service-detail.html

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Marinolino

You can then easily convert pdf (or its exported images) to epub, html, word etc. using Abbyy Finerader 15 or some earlier version 14, 13 ...

https://help.abbyy.com/en-us/finerea.../epub_settings

Hmmm.... I've done enough pdf to whatever conversions to have reached the conclusion that pdf, IMNSHO, is the worst format to convert from.

[Marinolino]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Hmmm.... I've done enough pdf to whatever conversions to have reached the conclusion that pdf, IMNSHO, is the worst format to convert from.

That is why I've also mentioned an (exported) images to epub/html option, but Abbyy uses its own pdf image recognition engine, so, many pdfs or its scanned images will be probably converted into epub quite ok.

I don't have much experience with scans-to-epub conversion though, because I've (just out of curiosity) converted several books into epub using Abbyy Finereader 13 a couple of years ago.

Anyone interested can try out new Abbyy Finereader 15 (free 30 days trial period), e.g. by scanning ten typical pages in ten books, because it is allowed just 100 saved pages in total.

https://www.abbyy.com/en-eu/lp/finer...en-eu_shopping

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Marinolino

You can then easily convert pdf (or its exported images) to epub, html, word etc. using Abbyy Finerader 15 or some earlier version 14, 13 ...

Actually, PDF is one of the hardest formats to convert from. You can get a right mess with a lot of errors and broken lines. It's not easy at all to do novel length PDF conversion correctly. The only way to be sure it's correct is to do an A/B compare of the PDF to the ePub and that takes a long time and spoils the book as you basically have to read the book letter by letter including every space and punctuation mark.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Marinolino

That is why I've also mentioned an (exported) images to epub/html option, but Abbyy uses its own pdf image recognition engine, so, many pdfs or its scanned images will be probably converted into epub quite ok.

I don't have much experience with scans-to-epub conversion though, because I've (just out of curiosity) converted several books into epub using Abbyy Finereader 13 a couple of years ago.

Anyone interested can try out new Abbyy Finereader 15 (free 30 days trial period), e.g. by scanning ten typical pages in ten books, because it is allowed just 100 saved pages in total.

https://www.abbyy.com/en-eu/lp/finer...en-eu_shopping

Exported images is a terrible idea. You cannot change anything. You might as well try reading the PDF.

1dollarscan may be good at what they do, buy they are limited to PDF so tat basically makes them useless.

[Marinolino]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Exported images is a terrible idea. You cannot change anything. You might as well try reading the PDF.

1dollarscan may be good at what they do, buy they are limited to PDF so tat basically makes them useless.

What I mean is, you create images (original scans) from pdf using some pdf editor, and then feed those images to Abbyy Finereader for conversion to epub, but Abbyy is doing the same thing anyway (decompresses pdf pages) when we feed him pdf for conversion to epub.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Marinolino

What I mean is, you create images (original scans) from pdf using some pdf editor, and then feed those images to Abbyy Finereader for conversion to epub, but Abbyy is doing the same thing anyway (decompresses pdf pages) when we feed him pdf for conversion to epub.

If the PDF has a text layer, then 1dollarscan is doing OCR and should be able to create an ePub.

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If the PDF has a text layer, then 1dollarscan is doing OCR and should be able to create an ePub.

Text layers are not very likely for PDF scans

[Marinolino]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If the PDF has a text layer, then 1dollarscan is doing OCR and should be able to create an ePub.

They actually do convert to other formats too, but we have to ask for it specifically:

https://1dollarscan.com/pricing.php

File Conversion
" We can convert your scanned PDF to many other files such as WORD, epub, txt, audio formats for audio books and many other file types. Please contact us with yours needs at contact@1dollarscan.com "

Originally Posted by ottischwenk

Text layers are not very likely for PDF scans

They are pretty common thing nowadays, and I don't mean visible ocr-text layer, but the invisible one added behind the page (scan) image, and since its main function is search & highlight capability, it doesn't have to be very accurate, but for belletristic literature we can usually use it efficiently for pdf reflow function as well (eink readers use ocr text layer for pdf reflowing), because there are not as many problematic signs and formulas, tables, diagrams etc. as with scientific books and the page layout is usually simpler.

Koreader app can even reflow pdf scans without an ocr layer, as we read them page by page, using k2pdfopt engine, so, we don't have to reflow them for our specific eink reader using k2pdfopt app on our PC/Mac computer beforehand, as in the past.

But those who don't have Koreader app installed on their eink reader, or their 6" or 8" eink reader is old and slow or with a little working memory, can simply convert (reflow) pdf scans or A4 pdf documents using k2pdfopt app and their eink reader will flip through such reflowed pdf as fast as the newer models, with a great font accuracy (very important for scientific documents).

https://www.willus.com/k2pdfopt/

" K2pdfopt optimizes PDF/DJVU files for mobile e-readers (e.g. the Kindle) and smartphones. It works well on multi-column PDF/DJVU files and can re-flow text even on scanned PDF files. It can also be used as a general PDF copying/cropping/re-sizing/OCR-ing manipulation tool. It can generate native or bitmapped PDF output, with an optional OCR layer. There are downloads for MS Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux. The MS Windows version has an integrated GUI. K2pdfopt is open source. "

[ottischwenk]

A scan always results in an image and an image never contains any text that can be further processed.
You can only try to extract this with OCR.

[John F]

Originally Posted by ottischwenk

A scan always results in an image and an image never contains any text that can be further processed.
You can only try to extract this with OCR.

I guess it depends on the definition of scan. When I scan a document on my multifunction printer to create a PDF, I can do a search for text on the PDF, and I can export the text of the PDF.