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New Project: Scanning the Windows 3.0 manual!

ostevens

Member
Joined
Jan 6, 2017
Messages
43
Location
Kosciusko County, IN
Hello!
I am exited to announce that I am beginning to scan the original Windows 3.0 manual for all to use. I have already scanned the first "chapter" of the manual, and I now have to crop and format the scans. Any advice would be helpful!
 
Um, if that is the one you wanted to sell, that is going to put a lot of wear on the spine.

I've been hoping a torn up 3.0 manual would show up on eBay for cheap, then I could just cut off the spine and scan it with an automated document scanner.
 
Dont wish to be a killjoy but ....

As somebody who spent literally thousands of hours scanning manuals ....

a) always check if somebody else already did an excellent job. If YES then stop right there

b) I would always recommend guillotining the spine and then scanning each page, double sided, colour, at high dpi, then textify searching the resulting pdf document so that when web hosted it is searchable by Google and others

c) Once chopped your chances of reselling the manual are low. You might be able to gift it or use it personally, but i found after I have a decent PDF then the paper becomes a bit surplus!

I'd reckon a several hundred page manual would end up at over 100 MB in size even with PDF compression set to high

Regards & keep up with the enthusiasm!


Marcus B
 
Dont wish to be a killjoy but ....

As somebody who spent literally thousands of hours scanning manuals ....

a) always check if somebody else already did an excellent job. If YES then stop right there

b) I would always recommend guillotining the spine and then scanning each page, double sided, colour, at high dpi, then textify searching the resulting pdf document so that when web hosted it is searchable by Google and others

c) Once chopped your chances of reselling the manual are low. You might be able to gift it or use it personally, but i found after I have a decent PDF then the paper becomes a bit surplus!

I'd reckon a several hundred page manual would end up at over 100 MB in size even with PDF compression set to high

Regards & keep up with the enthusiasm!


Marcus B

I don't think there are any manuals scanned.
 
There were many different OEM versions of the Windows 3.x manual. If you can fine one that was spiral or comb bound, instead of a paperback-style glue binding, then you can easily take it apart and then you'll have individual sheets which will be much easier to scan.
 
I ended up buying an optik plus book scanner (it has glass that runs to the edge) instead of building my own. It works well enough for manuals that have market value (ie. computer game manuals), and since the spine is never opened more than 90 degrees, it mostly preserves the spine.

For manuals that don't have market value, I just cut the spine off and run it through a double-sided scanner with an ADF.
 
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