I was letting my mind wander last night, and I got to thinking about all these older magazines that I have stashed in various places. I kept them because they had interesting articles and the like. I was wondering if there was an easy way to convert them into a digital format, so I can recycle the dead trees. It's not just the idea of capturing the text and OCRing it, though. Many have pictures that are a vital part of the article. My first thought was to write a PDF, but I don't see an easy way to do that. All I can think of on that is to scan each page into an image file (jpeg or similar), then import them into a LibreOffice document, then save that document in PDF format. I imagine that would work, but it would also kill text searching, I'd think. I suppose I could scan the images in, then scan the text in, OCR it, and then re-format it for the PDF, but that seems like a LOT of work. Especially as I think I have over 50 old issues of various magazines lying around in storage that I'd like to convert.
Does anyone know of any easy methods for converting articles on paper, with images, into something digitally readable? I don't care if it's PDF or ePub or something else, as long as it looks decent on the computer screen, and I can search text within the article. Thanks folks! --- Dan P.S. No, none of these magazines maintain electronic copies online that I'm aware of. I know Maximum PC and PC Gamer do, but others do not. Some are even discontinued, like a few old copies of PC Magazine. /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
