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Portable Scanner Solutions for Research?
Fished asks: "Lately, I'm finding that I need to do a lot of research in Libraries -- remember those? I'm tired of feeding dimes to the copiers, and would like to buy some kind of portable scanner to go with my Powerbook. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find one that will work. Back in the eighties, this were as common as dirt: they were small, four inch wide scanners that you could run over the page. Also, while I've found three portable scanners for PC's (from Antec and Pentax) even if I could somehow get them to work with Mac OS X, they are sheet-fed, which is useless for scanning pages out of books. Does anyone still make the old-fashioned Hand Scanners, and do they make them for Macs?"
why can't i do OCR on them afterwards??? either way the end results is an IMAGE
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
I can fit my little Cannon flatbed scanner into my laptop case with no problems - it can scan A4 pages too. I didn't think it would fit to be honest, but it's surprising what will go in that bag, given some "encouragement".
It's USB too, so no need for external power. It weighs next to nothing (compared to the laptop, paper and other crap in there) so I tend to keep it with me - often comes in handy...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
They're small. They take often 1600x1200 pictures, which is enough resolution for an 8.5x11 page (or A4, if you're over there).
I used it to "scan" my passport when I needed to get a copy of it to someone in the States once, and then just emailed the "scan" so they could print it out there. Looked better than a fax, and worked better, too.
fifth sigma, inc.
and i just wanted to be the 500th. Why not try a digital camera with zoom? It's more conspicuous than a surreptitious sweep of a page with the "mouse" scanners was, but hell - you can see exactly what you're going to get before you take the picture...
That's my purse! I don't know you! -- Bobby Hill
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i have used digital camera with great success for many such things. i haven't tried coupling with OCR, so don't know how suitable this would be for data intensive research. use camera with 4MP+ and somewhat high end (Nikon, Sony, Canon etc) with good close up functionality. After taking photo, zoom-in to see the quality of the photo. i have stopped using scanner and photo-copying documents for archival. instead, I always take photos.
Need some of the older scanners? I have the answer. THE POWER OF EBAY COMPELS YOU! =]
They are so high quality right now that if you take a picture of any page you should be able to take it with you...
Plus, fast, reusable, and distracting for others with the flash on!