# How do you read print books?

Category: accessible Devices

## Post 1 by Skyla (move over school!) on Saturday, 11-Apr-2009 1:29:25

Do you just use a scanner and hold down on the spine of the book so as to flatten it as much as possible? because the reality is that bookshare and other book-sharing sites don't have all the books we want to read. What do you do in these instances?

## Post 2 by SunshineAndRain (I'm happily married, a mom of two and a fulltime college student.) on Saturday, 11-Apr-2009 1:52:02

Well, I'm at a bit of a stand-still right now. Bookshare has made it more difficult to download books onto the Pac Mate all because they don't want to utilize their unpack utility. But, no, I don't mess with scanning and all that. I don't have a good scanner and somewhere along the way, I think we lost our OpenBook CD. I am considering saving up for a SARA Scanner.

## Post 3 by Big Pawed Bear (letting his paws be his guide.) on Saturday, 11-Apr-2009 5:36:25

sera is all well and good, but it would be cheaper in the longrun to get a new flatbed scanner and get k1000 or soemthing like that. i use a combo of k1000 and an n 82 with knfb reader mobile. i have recently bought a book that without my knfb reader mobile, i could not read, as the book is smaller than standard. i use knfb reader moble and k1000 to read mail, books, complete forms where allowed and such. dam good. yes it costs a bit to begin with, but i think of all the man hours i've saved by spending a little over £900 on a scanner and package and also the slight indulgance of the knfb reader moble, which i admit was expencive at the time, but now i couldn't be without as it gets me out of holes where the flatbed just can't read things.

## Post 4 by WillieTheWoof (I'll have the last word, thank you!) on Saturday, 11-Apr-2009 10:54:55

Questions about knob mobile. I just installed it yesterday but haven't put the polowerizers on yet. Has anyone done a comparison between using it with and without the polarizers? I ask this because a client that I taught got one from the VA and they didn't put the polarizers on and he says it's fine. Thoughts? Installation was a breeze and documentation good.

## Post 5 by Big Pawed Bear (letting his paws be his guide.) on Saturday, 11-Apr-2009 11:35:34

the knfb mobile will work without polerizers ok if the glair isn't so bad on the paper.

## Post 6 by Skyla (move over school!) on Saturday, 11-Apr-2009 12:41:13

Can someone tell me what a sara scanner is? how does it differ from traditional flat-bed scanners? and, my scanning skills with the KNFB reader are not yet good enough to read an entire book.

## Post 7 by Shadow_Cat (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Thursday, 16-Apr-2009 15:15:37

SARA stands for Stand Alone Reading Appliance, I think. I'm also thinking it it's made by Freedom Scientific, but I could be wrong there. It's basically a scanner that doesn't need any extra software, or a computer, for that matter. It's literally what the name says. But personally, I use a scanner and OpenBook.

## Post 8 by The SHU interpreter (I just keep on posting!) on Monday, 27-Apr-2009 21:11:37

someone reads the book for me if i am at home since my desktop is full of crap and my scanner can't work with the desktop because the computer is too old

## Post 9 by Twinklestar09 (I've now got the bronze prolific poster award! now going for the silver award!) on Tuesday, 28-Apr-2009 4:36:54

If Bookshare doesn't have the book I want/need, I usually scan it using OpenBook. I press the book flat with my hand or put something on the scanner's cover to hold it down. The scanning usually turns out good, but if it's something important (especially something for school), I use the spellcheck feature to fix what I can; otherwise I have to ask for sighted help to edit and match the messed-up phrase/line/section with the printed version.

## Post 10 by proud_mama2009 (Veteran Zoner) on Tuesday, 28-Apr-2009 9:53:40

I haven't had any major difficulties using Kurzweil to scan books.

## Post 11 by blw1978 (I'll have the last word, thank you!) on Thursday, 14-May-2009 16:32:36

Using Kurzweil to scan books? how do you do that? I have K1000 installed on my laptop. I would love to scan print books that I can't find in an alternative format. How does this work? How do you fit a print book into a scanner? Any suggestions? Thanks.

## Post 12 by Chris N (I just keep on posting!) on Thursday, 14-May-2009 17:01:36

I use K1000 and one of those Cannon scanners. If it's a book I'll open to a random page and use the Optimize Scanning function of K1000 to figure out the best settings. I've found that most pages will respond well with the same settings.

## Post 13 by blw1978 (I'll have the last word, thank you!) on Saturday, 16-May-2009 1:30:56

Can you elaborate on how to do this? Also, what about book binding, does this interfere with the scanning process? Do you generally find a lot of errors when scanning? I'm assuming regular books are scanned, particularly not ones with lots of graphics. Any tips would be great. I have a cannon scanner, and k1000 at home.

## Post 14 by monkeypusher69 (I'll have the last word, thank you!) on Saturday, 16-May-2009 17:55:05

also another thing to do to avoid having to hold the book flat onto the scanner is having the book de spined so you just have the pages, then if your scanner has a page feeder attachment you can just stick a hand full of pages in and let it auto scan through those . reload and continue till done.

## Post 15 by Siriusly Severus (The ESTJ 1w9 3w4 6w7 The Taskmaste) on Sunday, 11-Oct-2009 10:51:06

I as of now either look on NLS I am in the process of getting bookshare, and if all else fails, I go get the green tapes from the Library Of Congress.