Scanning books, bound records and fragile documents

Sheet-fed document scanners only take loose pages, so bound books, ledgers and fragile originals need a different approach. Which one depends on whether the original has to stay intact.

If the binding must stay intact

• Flatbed scanner: lay the book face down on the glass. Pages near the spine tend to curve away from the glass and come out shadowed or blurred, which is less of a problem on scanners with a CCD sensor because of their greater depth of field. See choosing a flatbed scanner, and for ledgers and large bound volumes, 11x17 (A3) scanners.
• Overhead scanner: the book lies face up and the scanner captures it from above, then software flattens the curve of the page. Nothing presses on the spine, which makes overhead scanning the gentlest option for valuable or fragile books. The ScanSnap SV600 is one example.

If the book can be taken apart

For books, manuals and bound reports that aren't valuable as objects, cutting off the spine and feeding the loose pages through a sheet-fed scanner is by far the fastest method. It can't be undone, so only do it to copies you don't need to keep.

Fragile loose documents

• Use the flatbed for brittle, torn or very old paper, and for photographs, rather than the feeder.
• Use a carrier sheet (a clear sleeve) if a fragile page must go through a feeder.
• Scan once, at a high enough resolution, so the original doesn't need to be handled again; 400-600 DPI is common for archival copies. See what DPI to scan at.

Large or historical collections

Thousands of bound pages, or originals that need conservation-grade handling, are usually best outsourced to a specialist. We don't scan documents ourselves, but we can assess the project and refer you to a trusted partner; see outsourcing document scanning.

Related

Scanners for large documents  -  Scanning photos  -  Document digitization: in house or outsourced