Trading Books for the PDF

[Kem]

You can sell the books on ebay and from that money buy the pdfs (legally) you want. Even if you have to add some csh the Original Electronic Format (OEF) pdfs are worth the added cost. Scanning them yourself is only a real option if there aren't any pdfs commercially available of the book, is short: Scanning is a hassle you can do without...

Sometimes Drivethrurpg has a sale (giving x% off a certain range), often around special days (such as haloween or DMsday...

I like this idea, but I'd buy then sell (minor detail) but I do have the means to buy the PDFs before hand. I'd just start with books I definitly want to convert (Like my Bastion Press Titles) as opposed to ones I care a little less about (Ultimate Guides even torn from the binding would work well in a binder or folder).

 

[sckeener]

Yeah that was the thread that came to mind when I thought of it, but I couldn't find where it went. Thats how I knew the idea in and of itself was legal. But I forgot about the Receipt thing though. I'll have to see what I can do.

If you do it yourself, scan in at 300 dpi (or better) and ocr. Down grade the dpi to 150 afterwards. Many OCR tools will do this for you. Adobe has it built in...

Using Adobe I take a 200mb 300dpi book scanned in book and the OCRing reduces it to about 20mb with 150 dpi. It takes about 10-20 minutes to OCR a 200mb book.

 

[silvermane]

Before you buy a scanner, check if you already have a digital camera that can do the job with much less hassle (3 mpix is usually enough to photograph A4 pages). You can even photograph thick books, if another person is helping you (or if you don't care too much about quality).