At 12:51 PM 02/20/10, you wrote:
>Thanks to those whom commented. I like the idea of being able to have
>someone else spend time on scanning manuals instead of me for a little
>money.
Some of the former Kinkos stores (now "Fedex Office") have the wide
scanners, some don't.
Kinkos got started in the 1980s by putting copier centers around
the Cal State university campuses, and then later on they added
a bunch of the larger community colleges. Then they expanded
nation wide.
I've found that the store nearest to a campus (in my case, the one
nearest to Cal Tech) has the equipment.
In the past when I've been asked about finding a large format scanner
or printers I just tell folks to look in the yellow pages for Kinkos stores,
then to call them and ask if they have the scanner and roll feed printer.
If that particular store does not, they know which one does.
Or look for blueprint shops. If the Kinkos shop equipment is down I use
a blueprint shop that I found by asking a small architectural firm who
they use for roll feed printing. I called them up and they charge for
scanning or printing by the square foot.
They handle USB flash ("thumb" or "pen") drives, CDs, or even bring in a
USB or Firewire interfaced hard drive.
Every place I've talked to will do individual pages out of a file. As an
example, a while back I walked into a shop with a flash drive that had
one file on it (just to make it easy for them) and had them print twelve
specific pages out of a 50 page document on their roll feed printer.
>However, it's also good to know how to do it myself when I have
>only one or two items as a time.
Stitching software is always a last resort. And as Eric said, use the
smallest file format possible - monochrome if you can, grey scale is
a second choice, color as a last resort.
If it's a color-coded PCB layout (pink for one side, grey for the other,
black for both) there's not much you can do.
>One of these days I hope to see a manual library on a website...
>I will certainly offer all the manuals in PDF that I have.
And <www.repeater-builder.com> isn't just that?
Where else do you find complete ACC, AEA, Astron, ComSpec,
CAT Auto, Connect Systems, CCP, E.F. Johnson, GE, GLB,
Hamtronics, Icom, Kenwood, Midland, Motorola, Radio Shack,
Regency / Relm, Ritron, Scom, Spectrum, Standard, Tait, Uniden,
Yaesu/Vertex, and Zetron manuals in PDF ?
Or antenna system products by AEA, Andrew, Cellwave, Decibel,
Phelps-Dodge, Sinclair, Telewave, TX-RX, Wacom ?
Not to mention test equipment by Bird, Boonton, Cushman, DSI,
Heath, Helper, Hewlett-Packard, IFR, Marconi, Ramsey, Tektronix,
Triplett, and Wavetek ?
>~Benjamin, KB9LFZ
Mike WA6ILQ
>On Fri, 2010-02-19 at 12:24 -0800, Eric Lemmon wrote:
> >
> > Benjamin,
> >
> > There is no need to mosaic anything. The key is to use a commercial
> > scanner
> > that has a throat of at least 48", so that long foldout sheets can be
> > scanned in one pass directly into PDF. Such machines are very
> > expensive,
> > and would normally be found only at a commercial graphics house. It is
> > not
> > a good idea to scan long pages into segments that later must be taped
> > or
> > somehow pieced together. Mention has been made of "stitching" the
> > pieces
> > back together using special software, but this is unnecessary if the
> > original had been scanned in one piece. Besides, I have never found
> > such
> > software to be either 100% effective or reasonably priced. The free
> > Adobe
> > Reader package includes a great feature, called the "SnapShot Tool."
> > Depending upon the Reader version, this may appear on the toolbar as a
> > camera inside of a box, or it may be in the Tools drop-down menu. If
> > all
> > you want is a portion of a long foldout schematic, simply select that
> > portion with the SnapShot Tool cursor, and it will be copied to your
> > Clipboard. You can then print out that detail on a standard page
> > printer.
> >
> > Another issue is that a line drawing, such as a schematic diagram,
> > should be
> > scanned directly into PDF to maintain high quality and a reasonable
> > size.
> > Image formats such as GIF, TIFF, and JPEG are great for color pictures
> > but
> > are not appropriate for line drawings. When an image has but two bits,
> > either 0 or 1, it is a huge waste of file space to scan it as if it
> > had
> > 16,000,000 colors. Adobe Acrobat Professional software includes
> > drivers
> > that seamlessly interface with commercial scanners. When scanning
> > pages
> > directly into PDF, use the line drawing setting unless the 8-bit gray
> > scale
> > setting is needed for photographs or PCB layouts. Above all, do not
> > scan
> > any black-and-white images as color images.
> >
> > Finally, all pages should be oriented as 11 inches high, regardless of
> > viewing aspect. This will permit the PDF to be printed on a commercial
> > roll
> > printer, reproducing the original in exactly the same size and format
> > as the
> > hard copy that was scanned.
> >
> > Unless every page of a manual is 8.5 by 11 inches, take it to a
> > commercial
> > graphics house for a professional scanning job.
> >
> > 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
> > [mailto:repeater-buil...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Benjamin L.
> > Naber
> > Sent: Friday, February 19, 2010 11:39 AM
> > To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: [Repeater-Builder] manual and service manual scanning
> > (digitize to
> > PDF)
> >
> > For those whom are scanning manuals, what program is used to mosaic
> > the
> > larger foldouts into one 'page'? If someone says GIMP, then I'm game!
> >
> > I have several manuals that will be copied and then probably recycled,
> > so I'd like to know what folks are doing...
> >
> > ~Benjamin, KB9LFZ
