I have a old motorcycle manual that I've been unable to find a PDF of in the community. Does anyone know how to unbind, scan to PDF, and rebind a book? Would like to do my part to get some info on the inter webs and free up some information for anyone who wants it.

Wasn't sure if to post this in Tech Talk or the Garage.

[Edited on August 7, 2014 at 7:14 PM. Reason : ]

8/7/2014 7:14:10 PM

Pages are 8.5x11, looks to be groupings of double pages though (11x17's folded in half). Binding is glue, no string.

Also, I have a copy of Acrobat X and Bluebeam at work, not sure if those will help me make a PDF Table of Contents or not, but I'd like to try.

[Edited on August 7, 2014 at 7:18 PM. Reason : ]

8/7/2014 7:17:28 PM

Hunt Library has a high speed book scanner

8/7/2014 7:28:03 PM

Anyone can use it on any book and get a PDF? You can do this without unbinding? Do the pages come out curved?

8/7/2014 11:03:45 PM

the pages will be flat, you may have to be a student but if you are not you can always join the friends of the library.

short of destroying the manual I'm not aware of a non-destructive way to take it apart for scanning.

8/8/2014 9:04:52 AM

So, I tried the scanner at the Hunt library. I was unimpressed with the results of the pages not coming out flat enough.

Long story short, I destroyed the manual!

Now I have these great looking flat pages that I want to scan to PDF, preferably with OCR so I can do a "find", and I'd like to add a clickable pdf table of contents.

Theres a scanner at work I can use, but I'm not sure of the quality, and whether or not it does OCR. Or is OCR something I do after scanning? Whats the best way to do this, and does someone have or recommend a good scanner for digital archiving like this?

I have Acrobat Pro I believe at work and Bluebeam as well, not sure which is better for this sort of thing?

[Edited on August 18, 2014 at 8:25 PM. Reason : ]

8/18/2014 8:23:13 PM

Use Acrobat, it can do the OCR scanning

8/18/2014 9:13:01 PM