Turn your paper books into (Kindle) e-books

[ElspethB]

Amazon has released software called Kindle Convert that enables you to convert printed books into Kindle format, according to this article.

Of course, you still have to go to the trouble of scanning your book, spread by spread or page by page, depending on the book size and your scanner. Way back in the late 90s I used to scan my books and use an OCR program to turn them into digital files that I could read on my Palm Pilot. It was laborious.

Still, for $19 I might try it out. I have a few old books I'd love to read on my devices for which no e-book exists.

[eschwartz]

Sounds like Yet Another OCR software chained together with the already free kindlegen and send-to-kindle services... what does this do that ABBYY Finereader doesn't do?

And I wonder how Amazon can sell a good OCR software for about a tenth of the price... unless it doesn't really compare.

You could always use stuff powered by the open source tesseract OCR engine, of course. If you are spending money on OCR, though, you'd probably want to go straight to the top.

[catsittingstill]

I'd be interested except it's windows and I have a mac. Oh well.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Sounds like Yet Another OCR software chained together with the already free kindlegen and send-to-kindle services... what does this do that ABBYY Finereader doesn't do

Sell for $19.

Plenty of scanners come with "free" OCR software, licensed from Abbyy or Nuance or somebody else. Amazon could have easily licensed one of those packages or engines or maybe it comes from IVONA or LAB126. Doesn't matter where they go it, all it matters is if it does what it promises.

Note that Amazon sells housebrand HDMI and USB cables that don't necessarily do anything other cables don't do. They still sell.

Lots of stores sell generic products under their own brands.
It's a way to make a buck or nineteen.

[eschwartz]

Well, take a look at the reviews so far -- I suspect they have not licensed ABBYY's OCR engine.

http://smile.amazon.com/Kindle-Conve.../dp/B00K7HEGZ6

[zebradude]

Originally Posted by ElspethB

Amazon has released software called Kindle Convert that enables you to convert printed books into Kindle format, according to this article.

Of course, you still have to go to the trouble of scanning your book, spread by spread or page by page, depending on the book size and your scanner. Way back in the late 90s I used to scan my books and use an OCR program to turn them into digital files that I could read on my Palm Pilot. It was laborious.

Still, for $19 I might try it out. I have a few old books I'd love to read on my devices for which no e-book exists.

well I purchased the software and I am almost finished with my first book.

I have a bunch of old text files that were old books that were not for sale anywhere and to be able to format and ship it to my Amazon book cloud is wonderful! it is a plodding process...

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Well, take a look at the reviews so far -- I suspect they have not licensed ABBYY's OCR engine.

I did.
They look weird and aren't very useful. (5 stars but no comment beyond including a card? On a download only product?)

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by zebradude

well I purchased the software and I am almost finished with my first book.

I have a bunch of old text files that were old books that were not for sale anywhere and to be able to format and ship it to my Amazo book cloud is wonderful! it is a plodding process...

calibre will convert your text files for free. And email it to your send-to-kindle email address into the bargain.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I did.
They look weird and aren't very useful. (5 stars but no comment beyond including a card? On a download only product?)

I was looking at the one which pointed out the OCR was terrible and ABBYY Finereader 11 did a much better job on the same files.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I was looking at the one which pointed out the OCR was terrible and ABBYY Finereader 11 did a much better job on the same files.

...that fed it a pdf.
I saw it.
Not sure what it means, though.
Most bundled-in OCR doesn't even try to do anything with pdfs. (Even the ones licensing from Abbyy.)
There's no telling what was in the pdf and they clearly state they need 600dpi.

What I would be interested in knowing is why somebody with acess to Abbyy would waste want to buy a $19 OCR package...

As I said, the reviews are weird.

[eschwartz]

If not PDFs, what would people actually use this for?
In any event, that review implies OCR was done, just very bad OCR.


Some people like testing things for the heck of it. I imagine they were willing to sacrifice $19 just for the sake of that -- granted, not everyone is like that.

[zebradude]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

calibre will convert your text files for free. And email it to your send-to-kindle email address into the bargain.

True and I have done that on my AuraHD.

The coolness with this system is if you are like me and have MANY Kindles you can now upload any of my Text book's into the Kindle cloud and it will show up in the BOOKS section of all of my Kindles and I can download it on the fly on any of my Kindles while I am out and about.

And the Sync to the last page read WORKS!

[eschwartz]

How is that different from using Send-to-Kindle?

[zebradude]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

How is that different from using Send-to-Kindle?

the item becomes a document and not a book and you would be charged to download it on the go on 3G and I'm not sure if it syncs to the last page read?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

If not PDFs, what would people actually use this for?

Tiffs and jpgs from a cheap scanner?
That *is* what the product page states: 600dpi jpegs, tiffs, and pdfs.
I'm guessing it might not do well with a 200 dpi pdf.