[Boatanchors] PDF Writer Needed

[Bill Cromwell]

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:01:06 EST
Robert said
> 
> However, you must first have a scanner (hardware).  Most scanners will scan 
> to PDF.  If all you are going to do after scanning it is convert it to a 
> PDF, you may as well scan it straight to that to begin with.  Once it's a PDF, 
> you can't really do anything useful to improve the quality anyway.  You 
> basically have a GIGO situation.  Like BAMA.
> 
> If the source document is in poor condition, you would be better advised to 
> scan to TIFF, clean it up, and then convert to PDF.  Or just leave it as 
> TIFF.  If you don't intend to distribute it, there's no advantage and several 
> disadvantages to PDF versus TIFF.
> 

The process can be tedious cleaning up the dot tiff file but the result
is a brand new, clean document. In the past I've removed the images of
staple holes, dogear creases, holes that were punched for a binder,
fingerprint smudges, coffee stains, and cleaned up around smudged text.

I use a H-P flatbed scanner (single sheet) and Linux operating system
with Open Office. Open Office was recommended in another post and I
second that. There is a M$ Windows version and it includes the PDF
printer - I think. I haven't done Windows at all for the past five years
and not on *my* pc for more than ten years and sometimes the Windows
versions are slightly different. If you need some help I'll offer to
help if you scan the manual to the tiff format and send me a copy of the
files. I would even scan for you but your manual seems pretty fragile
(shipping gorillas).

73,

Bill  KU8H