[Hidden-tech] Converting Catalogs to Digital Format

[B. Kimo Lee]

Hi Tony,

I second Karl's suggestion as what may be the least expensive options converting your old paste-ups to PDFs with OCR. It won't be as user-friendly as a product catalog running on a database but it will do the trick.

You can have a print shop trim off the binding cleanly, and then send them through a sheet-fed scanner with OCR capabilities with the final output being in PDF format. Then you can upload the documents to the web, either to Google Catalogs or to your own web site. Ask Google to crawl them and you'll have something viable.

One  issue might be that if the catalogs were printed on newsprint, you might have bleed through of text on the backside of the page in your scans and that will produce errors in your OCR. You can solve that by making sure that the surface of the platen cover (behind the page to be scanned) is black, instead of white. Run some test scans to make sure the contrast is as good as you can get it for clean text recognition before running the whole catalog.

Good luck,
Kimo


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On Mar 27, 2013, at 8:05 PM, Karl Hakkarainen wrote:

>   ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>   ** If you did, we all thank you.
> 
> 
> Although I've not tried this yet, I would suggest looking at Google Catalogs for Retailers - http://www.google.com/catalogs/about/retailers/index.html. They allow you to upload a PDF of your catalog, annotate and animate, and make it available via their app.
> A high-quality scan to PDF with text conversion, coupled with the Catalogs gadgetry, might provide a lively online publication. 
> kh
> 
> ---
> Karl A. Hakkarainen
> 508 829 5825
> Queen Lake Consulting
> www.queenlake.com
> Twitter:RoasterBoy
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 6:24 PM, Tony Jillson <stmix at birdwaves.com> wrote:
>    ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>    ** If you did, we all thank you.
> 
> 
> 
> Hi All,
> I've been asked to find what I can about converting paper catalogs to digital format. These are old-school, pasted up by hand catalogs. Hundreds and hundreds of pages, with Rubylith images pasted in.
> The text needs to be converted, and searchable, but can basically remain the same design.
> My client says the film and other related supplies are becoming hard to find, and will run out in a year or two, so he needs to get on this sooner than later.
> Thanks in advance for any info you may have for me.
> -Tony Jillson
> 
> Tony Jillson
> Birdwaves Media
> Web Design • Graphics • Music
> stmix at birdwaves.com
> (413) 628-3805
> www.birdwaves.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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