DIY Book Scanner

Hello,

While researching fast commercial alternatives of book scanners I came accross Microtek XT-3300 and XT-3500 models.
They offer high speed scanning (3 seconds per page) XT-3500 even better.

XT-3500 has interesting feature - detecting of when you place a book and automatically scan. You can look at it there:
http://ww7.microtek.com.tw/products.php?KindID=4&ID=32

Compared to XT-3300 model XT-3500 comes with a premium of around 180 Euros.
Does anyone have any experience with such feature? How valuable it is for book scanning?

The problem with this type of scanner that scans up to the edge of the page is this. (I have an Optic book Plustek) It requires a very complex series of movements to scan a book.

1. Lay book on scanner
2. press button to scan (this step may be automatic if you use a timed scan)
3. Remove book from scanner
4. Turn book though 180 degrees.
5 Press button to scan.
6. Remove book from scanner
7. Turn page
8. Remember which page you are about to copy - left or right
Back to step 1

If you are doing this though a long book it is very brain intensive, and you are likely to make some mistakes.

for a short book it would be OK.

Now compare this with just laying a book on a flat bed scanner

1. Lay book on scanner
2. Press button
3. Flip page

Just three steps repeated. It is hard work to use these types of scanner where you lay the book over the edge of the glass.

I have the same type of scanner, and found that if you use a different hand for pressing down on each side of the book (e.g. left hand on the front cover and then right hand on the back cover), you can get into a rhythm that doesn't take as much thought. After a while, you get the feeling that something is wrong if you try to do a move out of order. I have gone through whole books like this more or less on autopilot without messing it up, although taking a look at the computer from time to time to make sure the page is the right way up helps give peace of mind. I also find that I get through roughly the same number of pages between the screen saver kicking in, so just keeping track of that helps let you roughly know when you skipped or repeated a pair of pages.

Having said that, it's still pretty slow (at least with my model), so I've bought a couple of cameras and intend on using those in the future, at least for black and white text.

Can anybody provide some hands-on experience with the Microtek XT-3500?

Does anyone have a price for this scanner?

To find prices just use a search engine, e.g.: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=M ... 3500+price

davidlandin wrote:The problem with this type of scanner that scans up to the edge of the page is this. (I have an Optic book Plustek) It requires a very complex series of movements to scan a book.

1. Lay book on scanner
2. press button to scan (this step may be automatic if you use a timed scan)
3. Remove book from scanner
4. Turn book though 180 degrees.
5 Press button to scan.
6. Remove book from scanner
7. Turn page
8. Remember which page you are about to copy - left or right
Back to step 1

If you are doing this though a long book it is very brain intensive, and you are likely to make some mistakes.

for a short book it would be OK.

Now compare this with just laying a book on a flat bed scanner

1. Lay book on scanner
2. Press button
3. Flip page

Just three steps repeated. It is hard work to use these types of scanner where you lay the book over the edge of the glass.

Except a flatbed scanner WITHOUT a borderless edge will produce shadow and possibly missing text close to the page gutter. This practically defeats the purpose of using this type of scanner in the first place. Your second set of steps also didn't list "remove book from scanner" as the first set of steps did. You would need to do this step regardless of scanner type.

davidlandin wrote:The problem with this type of scanner that scans up to the edge of the page is this. (I have an Optic book Plustek) It requires a very complex series of movements to scan a book.
1. Lay book on scanner
2. press button to scan (this step may be automatic if you use a timed scan)
3. Remove book from scanner
4. Turn book though 180 degrees.
5 Press button to scan.
6. Remove book from scanner
7. Turn page
8. Remember which page you are about to copy - left or right
Back to step 1

May I suggest that when using a scanner with a borderless edge, or for that matter a normal flatbed scanner, scanning all the odd pages and then all the even pages will greatly simplify the workflow and reduce the chance of errors -- given software that can automatically place the scanned pages in the correct order.

Software that can place the scanned pages in the correct sequence can be as simple as a scanner interface that allows successive scanned pages' file numbers to be incremented by two, or if that function is not provided in the scanner driver, imaging software that provides that function when operating the scanner using a standard TWAIN interface. For scanning in Windows, the freeware Irfanview image software is one option.

If scanned left and right pages will in addition need to be processed differently, for example cropped differently, then scanning left and right pages to different folders can greatly facilitate that.

Andrius wrote: ↑03 Apr 2013, 03:11 Hello,

While researching fast commercial alternatives of book scanners I came accross Microtek XT-3300 and XT-3500 models.
They offer high speed scanning (3 seconds per page) XT-3500 even better.

XT-3500 has interesting feature - detecting of when you place a book and automatically scan. You can look at it there:
http://ww7.microtek.com.tw/products.php?KindID=4&ID=32

Compared to XT-3300 model XT-3500 comes with a premium of around 180 Euros.
Does anyone have any experience with such feature? How valuable it is for book scanning?

I have just purchased a Microtek XT3500 scanner and will be testing this.

jpkeyzer wrote: ↑24 Aug 2017, 10:15
I have just purchased a Microtek XT3500 scanner and will be testing this.

Can I ask where you bought your XT-3500?