Uploaded April 2019 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
Welcome to method 1 of 4, of how to digitize a book to PDF. Here we will be using a simple flat bed scanner, which can normally be found on their own or as part of an all in one scanner/printer device.
Normally when I am digitising books I tend to use ABBYY fine reader as my scanning software and Adobe Acrobat pro as my PDF digitiser.
However, in this method and the following methods, I will be using only free software so you won't have to spend a penny and the quality will be every bit as good.
To begin with, while you can use the software that came with your scanner in order to produce JPEG images, I am going to use the free scanner software NAPS2 as it will automatically continue to scan images while pausing every five or 10 seconds giving you time to turn the next page; so you don't have to press the scan button for every page. This way you can actually watch a movie while you're scanning a book.
0:00 Intro
2:38 Download NAPS2 (FREE)
3:22 Download PDF-XChange Editor (FREE)
3:36 Download Xnconvert & Pixillion Image Converter
4:15 Load NAPS2 Scan Settings
5:50 Start Scanning
12:19 Crop and Whiten images with Xnconvert
17:32 Jpeg to pdf using Pixillion (use NAPS2 instead)
19:11 Open pdf in PDF-XChange Editor
21:38 Rotate pages with PDF-XChange Editor
22:09 OCR page text
Scanning software - NAPS2
naps2.com
sourceforge.net/projects/naps2
PDF-XChange Editor
tracker-software.com/product/pdf-xchange-editor
portable version pdf-xchange
softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/PDF/PDF-XChange-Editor-Portable.shtml
Xnconvert
xnview.com/en/xnconvert
Pixillion Image Converter
nchsoftware.com/imageconverter/index.html
Briss - dual-page spitter
sourceforge.net/projects/briss/files
java for briss
java.com/en/download
antrenamer
antp.be/software/renamer/download
Loads of free software
nchsoftware.com/software/index.html
Welcome to method 1 of 4, of how to digitize a book to PDF. Here we will be using a simple flat bed scanner, which can normally be found on their own or as part of an all in one scanner/printer device.
Normally when I am digitising books I tend to use ABBYY fine reader as my scanning software and Adobe Acrobat pro as my PDF digitiser.
However, in this method and the following methods, I will be using only free software so you won't have to spend a penny and the quality will be every bit as good.
To begin with, while you can use the software that came with your scanner in order to produce JPEG images, I am going to use the free scanner software NAPS2 as it will automatically continue to scan images while pausing every five or 10 seconds giving you time to turn the next page; so you don't have to press the scan button for every page. This way you can actually watch a movie while you're scanning a book.
0:00 Intro
2:38 Download NAPS2 (FREE)
3:22 Download PDF-XChange Editor (FREE)
3:36 Download Xnconvert & Pixillion Image Converter
4:15 Load NAPS2 Scan Settings
5:50 Start Scanning
12:19 Crop and Whiten images with Xnconvert
17:32 Jpeg to pdf using Pixillion (use NAPS2 instead)
19:11 Open pdf in PDF-XChange Editor
21:38 Rotate pages with PDF-XChange Editor
22:09 OCR page text
Scanning software - NAPS2
naps2.com
sourceforge.net/projects/naps2
PDF-XChange Editor
tracker-software.com/product/pdf-xchange-editor
portable version pdf-xchange
softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/PDF/PDF-XChange-Editor-Portable.shtml
Xnconvert
xnview.com/en/xnconvert
Pixillion Image Converter
nchsoftware.com/imageconverter/index.html
Briss - dual-page spitter
sourceforge.net/projects/briss/files
java for briss
java.com/en/download
antrenamer
antp.be/software/renamer/download
Loads of free software
nchsoftware.com/software/index.html
