Hey guys, I just love reading on my Kindle, but not all books are available for it

I can't even find certain ones to download anywhere (assuming I have a legal physical copy of course).

So...any tips on the easiest cheapest way of taking my real books and converting them? I've seen DIY projects that total $250+, and I'm not trying to be cheap or anything, but that's a little bit out of my budget

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Together, we can stop paper cuts!!!

[kartpai]

Its a very long process to convert a 'real' book to digital format if you can get your hands on some Japanese scanners it would be easy and would minimize the errors too But most of the books are available in ebook form post a request in request section.

[atreidesx69]

If your typing speed is above average maybe you could try to encode it yourself using a word processor. Then convert to whatever format you like. But like kartpai said, it's time consuming albeit less costly.

I own quite a few "real" books that I also own a digital copy of, and it is very interesting how much more frequently I find myself gravitating towards the digital copies.

But I just saw this:

If your typing speed is above average maybe you could try to encode it yourself using a word processor.

and thought "oh my gosh, what a horrible thing to sit down and do." And then I thought of entire hot sticky warehouses in China filled with nothing but oppressed secretaries typing copy after copy of the entire Wheel of Time series until their fingers bleed.

But seriously, I think this is a fascinating topic and I look forward to more input. Input that is more helpful than mine

The book in question is Ju-On (amazon link at the bottom of this post for this curious about the book). I have actually requested it here, and elsewhere before, and no one's had it. This book isn't available in eBook form anywhere legally (or otherwise, trust me I've looked everywhere). I finally decided to buy a physical copy last night, it should be here by Tuesday.

Which kind of scanner are you talking about? Cause I do have access to a scanner through work. Nothing fancy or great, but it seems to do good when we use it.

But note, I want to read this on my Kindle like any other book. I don't want to just have a PDF file where I have to squint to read the text. If anybody could help me get this in true Kindle format, heck, who knows, it might (accidentally of course) find it's way somewhere else, maybe on the internet like this site...

Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/Ju--Kei-Ohishi/dp/159582071X/

[kartpai]

According to rumours these are available at least something similar but they are too costly though but you could try to access someone elses if it is available, ask around eh.


m.cnet.com/news/3d-book-scanner-eyes-novels-at-250-pages-per-minute/57552034



All other processes are time consuming and full of errors ,there is no effective cheap way though other than typing you could off course scan normaly and then check,convert,edit but a long process again.

@CourtPuck
You have a very archaic view about China
I think they no longer type that way, there are automated machine that print.

[atreidesx69]

I own quite a few "real" books that I also own a digital copy of, and it is very interesting how much more frequently I find myself gravitating towards the digital copies.

But I just saw this:

If your typing speed is above average maybe you could try to encode it yourself using a word processor.

and thought "oh my gosh, what a horrible thing to sit down and do." And then I thought of entire hot sticky warehouses in China filled with nothing but oppressed secretaries typing copy after copy of the entire Wheel of Time series until their fingers bleed.

But seriously, I think this is a fascinating topic and I look forward to more input. Input that is more helpful than mine

lol. I used to work in one of those "hot sticky warehouses" here in my country. Mostly medical books, on which we have to do lots of conversions during encoding. It takes an average of 2 days to complete one good sized book. Other than that and scanning I can't think of any other way to convert a physical book to digital.

Yeah...that scanner would cost way too much. If I could find OCR software that works well, I could use the my scanner at work to scan the pages then convert after.

[LockHood]

I think I read one of my facebook friends say something about their new HP printer having the option to scan as pdf . Ordinary printer we buy for home use . With scanning and photocopying facilities . I thought that's how people did it . I find the prospect of scanning page by page way too bothersome though . I can type fast , so that's what I did . Only done it once though . A small 140 page book .

Hmm. I mean, any printer can scan, and I can make the pages a PDF. The trick is the software that can make the PDF truly a Kindle file, not a Kindle file with a giant image per page that's nearly impossible to read. If anyone knows of any good software (Windows or Mac) that'd be great.

UPDATE

Ok guys, found a solution. Board can be considered closed.