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Aviation Mags made into PDF files

Fri Mar 25, 2005 10:58 am

I'm going to be scanning some of aviation mags into PDF files to make them more accessable when researching stuff. I know how to do it but have any of you done it before? Have you run into any problems. any tips?

Fri Mar 25, 2005 3:09 pm

Hey Scott
How about taking digital pictures of the page and posting that way. I do it quite often when sending emails. Just a thought
Mike

Fri Mar 25, 2005 4:31 pm

I have used Adobe 6.0 with my HP scanner to archive all the articles gathered in the research for my Cavalier Mustangs book.

What I find works best is to first scan the articles into PDF format at 300+ DPI and full color (which will result in a 20-30MB file). Then after the file is completed and saved, go to File => Reduce File Size. This will slim the file down to 1-5MB -- depending on how many photos are in there -- without significantly degrading the quality of the scans.

It makes for a file size that is easily on the bandwidth if you want to allow downloads or online viewing.

Fri Mar 25, 2005 11:05 pm

I use Adobe 5.0 and my HP scanner. I find that magazine pictures seem to work out best when I scan them at a higher resolution (600dpi) and then reduce the file to 150 dpi to save it. It tends to blur the "dots" that the magazine pictures are printed in to something that looks halfway presentable on my computer screen. Use a picture formate as opposed to a drawing format to save the scan.

Are you going to use softeware to convert the text on the page to searchable text? I started to do this when I scaned the F2G manuals and it was just taking way tool long (about 15 minutes per page) , by the time I fixed the text, rescanned the images on the page and formated the page so that it matched the origional. I just ended with scanning the page as a picture, not as a drawing, and then playing with the contrast and brightness functions to cut down on the amount of bleed thru from the text on the reverse side of the page that I scanned.

The ribbon wire in my poor scanner is almost burnt to a crisp!

TTFN....Kenn
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