Book scanning is a great budget option to get an out of print book back into production, but it’s not without its drawbacks. Below, we will explain the journey your book takes from the initial file through to a book printed from a scanned book, and how each step will affect the quality of that final book.
Please Note:
- Your bound book can not exceed 8.5" on its shortest side.
- We are not able to return the pages and cover of the book after scanning.
- The file produced in Destructive Book Scanning can not be used for ebook or audiobook conversion.
Understanding Book Scanning
Let's take a trip back in time so we can learn about generational loss and quality. The year is 1990 something and you have a CD, a tape deck and a friend who just won't check this album out unless you make them a cassette copy. That conversion from crisp lossless digital audio on the CD to a second-generation copy on the cassette isn't an exact duplicate. Now let's say your friend loves the album and wants to share it with their friend. They're going to make a tape copy from your tape. This is going to produce a third generation copy that's not quite as good as the second-generation copy. If the third friend wants to share it, they'll create a fourth generation copy and so on. It gets the job done, but each copy becomes slightly different than the one before.
Now let's apply the same set of steps to your book instead of tapes and you have an idea what to expect from the process of book scanning. We'll go over some examples so that you can see this in action.
Our journey begins with a first-generation digital file. Like the CD in our story from earlier we can print from this over and over again and the quality will always remain. The file would have bleed and vectors intact and the images are of a higher quality for a reason we’ll touch on shortly. The book you are sending us for scanning likely originated as a digital file unless your book is older. If you have any chance of getting your hands on a digital file from your previous printer or publisher your books will likely look better than copies created from scanning a book printed from that digital file.
We have your printed copy that you are sending in for scanning, this is the second-generation copy. The process of applying ink to paper to recreate what you saw digitally is almost always done by blending small dots of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks. Viewed from a normal distance you don't really see the dots but if you have a magnifying glass or a tool called a loupe you can take a closer look and see those dots. When we scan your printed material, those dots become part of the digital image. This can introduce something called a moire pattern that we'll cover later. Anything vector, such as text, is now no longer vector. Because we are scanning something that has been through a final trim, there is no bleed. This is not really an issue for the interior pages of text-heavy books but will be an issue for image heavy books such as children's books and book covers. The digital file created from scanning your book is a third-generation copy. OnPress only offers scanning services in conjunction with a print order so when we go to print that scanned digital file to make copies for you, they will be a fourth-generation copy. Because of the issues we have pointed out along the way these copies will not be identical to the copy you sent in for scanning. We mentioned moire earlier but let's see that in action. The new file we are printing from has the printed dots from your book you sent in for scanning as part of the digital image. The printing press is applying its own dots. These are not likely to line up exactly so the overlap of the two can create an odd effect. The color will be a bit different, most likely darker. If your book needed bleed, we would have to handle that in a way that best suits your book.
What was sent in for scanning must be a finished printed book - scrap books, notebooks, or anything that may have notes or pictures attached to a backing sheet are not eligible for scanning.
The size of the book to scan cannot exceed 8.5 inches on its shortest side. Using some of our trim sizes as an example, we could scan a 9x7 landscape book, but we could not scan a 10x10 square book. Because the file is the scanned image of text, not live text, the text cannot be edited, and the file is not eligible for ebook conversion.
While it's always important to review your proofs carefully before approving, with the scanned book there is a slim chance that the pages may have stuck together in the scanning process resulting in them missing from your digital proof. If you don't feel comfortable reviewing the proof digitally, hard copy proofs are always available.
Book scanning is a great budget option to get an out-of-print book back into production but it's not without its drawbacks. If you want to get perfect looking books you might want to consider retyping your manuscript and printing a new edition of your book. OnPress can help you with the formatting and cover Design Services to print your book without the issues we just outlined.
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