Portable, Paperless, Digital Copy Machine

Step 10 Optional: Convert your Pdf files into word-searchable Pdf files

Several programs, e.g. Abbyy Transformer for Windows(~$49), do a good job with 
   optical character recognition (OCR), converting Pdfs into searchable Pdfs. 
After the conversion process, you can search for keywords in your copied document!
You can’t do this with the pages you get off of a Xerox copy machine.
AND … You saved a few trees by going paperless! Thank you.

Comments

[jcrash]

 Did this over the weekend.  Had a few issues, not with the design but with my ability to implement it.  I went with a slightly bigger piece of acrylic.  I found for single page documents (or multi-page that I've ripped the staple out of for this purpose and stapled again when done), I didn't need to put it under the glass.  Anyhow, the bigger glass but same sized rods resulted in my having to use a bigger piece of wood.  Blessing in disguise: I drilled two holes--one for the $50 10 MP camera that does great for this, and one for my wife's Canon Rebel xti that also does GREAT for this...and has the nice feature of shooting with a remote button.

I'd been looking at the other designs.  While brilliant and well-executed, this much simpler, less to break, portable even if you don' t take it apart first design works much better on a grad student budget in a grad student [read small] apartment.  Thanks for taking the time to actually photograph and upload your design and methods.

Currently, I'm playing around with light sources and positions to minimize glare and reflectivity issues.

[DHagen]

Thanks for the kind comments & for your ethusiasm for this Instructable.

To avoid the reflections -- the main fault with this model -- I developed a similar copy stand with no plastic. See http://www.instructables.com/id/New-Improved-Portable-Paperless-Digital-Copy-M/ The downside to the new one is that the frame has to be reset for each size of book., Once setup, the new model is fast and reflection free (if the pages themselves aren't shiny). Furthermore, it is more compact when broken down.