Hi Phil I am not sure where you live but there are now quite a few Family History Societies that have book scanners where you can lay your precious book face up on the bed of the scanner and then a picture is taken from above about two feet away so you do not have to press down on the book or squash the binding, they even have a mirror at the back which will work out and compensate for page curvature at the centre We at the Berkshire FHS in Reading have one and I am sure that some arrangement could be made to scan in your book, however I am not sure if you live in the UK and if so are you anywhere near to Reading. Regards Gillian (events coordinator for Berks FHS) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Phil Warn" <philwarn@ntlworld.com> To: <SOG-UK-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 2:37 PM Subject: [SoG] Scanning an old book > Hi gang, > > Generally, you are a very knowledgeable lot! > > Could some one suggest whether a hand held scanner would the best bet for > scanning an old book? > > I do not like the idea of using a flat bed scanner because of the fragility > of this 94 year old book about the Warne Family in America. > > The devices I have seen contain some local memory and I do not mind having > to "stitch" together images to from an A4 page before OCR'ing the image so > formed. > > Apart from a few pictures and a couple of hand drawn Coats of Arms, the > rest is text. > > I see a hand held device as not having any ill effect on the spine, etc. > > I want to be able to produce a Word Document or PDF file from the scanned > images of the pages. > > Any thoughts would be most welcome. > > Has any one used a digital camera for this purpose, for example? > > Many thanks > > Phil. > > >