1 Scanning quality & formats - PDF or PS

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1.1 recommended settings

• 150dpi bw - if no comments need being inserted (such as the source or name of the document scanned) or for on-screen use only
• 300dpi for text or 600dpi for photos - colour (you can easily resample 600 or 300 to 150dpi & 'convert' using 'monochrome' for smaller files)

1.2 recommended formats

• either save directly as pdf if no further editing required
• or save as ps, carry out required editing and then convert ps to pdf

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2 Scanning alternatives - XSANE / SANE / SCANIMAGE

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• use a GUI [graphical user interface] with Xsane (or The Gimp with 'sane' plugin) if you need to select precisely the margins
• use a command line from the terminal (eg. xterm)

sane > page.ps

• scan & trim one page at a time from the terminal
(required to initialise (?) scanner before actually scanning)

scanimage --formatted-device-list=plustek:libusb:001:003
scanimage -p --mode Gray --resolution 150 --brightness 20 \
	  --speed -l 2 -t 2 -x 178 -y 262 -B > pg01.pnm

• use batch mode [only available from the terminal hence is faster when many pages to process]

scanimage --formatted-device-list=plustek:libusb:001:003
scanimage --batch-start=pg00 --batch-count=1 --batch-increment=1 \
          --batch-prompt -p --mode Gray --resolution 150 \
	  --brightness 20 --speed -l 2 -t 2 -x 178 -y 262

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3 Adding text with CONVERT (minimum 300dpi)

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3.1 position comment at the top of the page

• example 1

convert -pointsize 16 -draw "text 150,13 'Title of the book - Company \
        - User group" -fill black page01.ps page01.pdf

• example 2

convert -font Bookman-DemiItalic -pointsize 16 -draw "text 120,13 'Title \
        of the book - Company - User group" -fill black page01.ps page01.pdf

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3.2 or position comment at the bottom of the page

• example 1

convert -pointsize 10 -draw "text 150,738 'Title of the book - Company \
        - User group" -fill black page01.ps page01.pdf

• example 2

convert -font Bookman-DemiItalic -pointsize 16 -draw "text 120,732 'Title \
        of the book - Company - User group" -fill black page01.ps page01.pdf

convert -pointsize 10 -draw "text 150,738 'Title of the book - Company \
        - User group" -fill black page01.ps page01.pdf

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4 Adding text with CONVERT and PS2PDF
(original is below 300dpi)

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• avoid using function 'convert' to both insert a comment & produce a pdf in one go if the document was scanned with less than 300dpi
• first, if you scanned directly into pdf you need to generate a ps file

pdf2ps page01.pdf

• add comment on the ps file

convert -font Bookman-DemiItalic -pointsize 10 -draw "text 120,13 'Title \
        of the book - Company - User group" -fill red page01.ps page01_with_title.ps

• then regenerate the pdf file

ps2pdf page01_with_title.ps

• which gives

page01_with_title.pdf

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5 Merging scanned files into a single, multi-page pdf file

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• put all the required pdf files into a new temporary directory (to avoid including unnecessary files during the join process)
• rename pdf files in the right order if relevant (eg: page00.pdf, page01.pdf. page02.pdf, etc)
• run the following command

pdfjoin *.pdf

• which gives a file bearing the name of the last file merged followed by '-joined'

page02-joined.pdf

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