|
Howdy!
I have recently started picking up many source books, in particular the line of player's companions (and soon campaign settings). Now that I am a subscriber I get the free PDF's of the new releases which is awesome. This will allow me to be prepared to show the source for any of the builds that I hope to run at Paizocon this year and at the PFS games that I attend in general on a tablet (yet to purchase, it was my birthday gift from my wife last week, happy for suggestions on that too!).
My big issue at this point is that I have several books that are not in PDF format (ebay, used book store, scratch and dent sale here, etc.), and I would like to convert them so I can travel completely paperless.
I have access to an all-in-one printer that I can scan with, and know from googling that I should prefer software with OCR capabilities so that the final PDF's can be searchable.
Does anyone have any specific suggestions on what software to use? I have looked at Omnipage and Filecenter, but haven't downloaded demos of either yet, I am hoping to find someone who has experience with manual scanning and the stitching together of the pages to guide my software choice before I sign up for a ton of free trials and get on all the email advertising lists that involves.
It is amazing to me that I can not find a real walk-through on this anywhere, I am sure lots of folks have done this for all sorts of different games, but with PFS actually requiring you to have the materials at all times, it seems a no-brainer.
All of the videos I can find on the subject of book scanning are mostly to make them e-reader ready, I am hoping for something a bit more robust.
Thanks in advance.
(I think this is in the right place, and a legitimate question, please move/remove if it isn't)
Having made a few PDFs myself, IMO it's a lot more cost-effective to just buy them if they're available. Decent software will set you back something like US$100, at least for the program I use for compiling PDFs for my own use, then there's the time and effort needed to first scan, then straighten and clean up the images, in my experience a minimum of five minutes per page just for black and white stuff, let alone color... and then maybe the cost of the software to do that too, another US$60 for what I'm using right now.
After all that, you might still end up finding out that the PDFs won't be acceptable at PFS without the Paizo watermarking showing they're a legitimate purchase. You're better off just buying them from Paizo.
My 2 cents on the issue.
|
|
The money for software and the time don't bother me too much, I am sure I would find other uses for it, and as an educational worker I have 2 months off ahead of me to scan pages while I read the Tales line. I hadn't thought of the watermark issue though, I will have to send along an email to my VC and get his thoughts on it.
At any rate, thanks for the feedback, if an answer on the watermark issue isn't posted here by someone official, I will post back any response I get later.
I really do hope that isn't the case though. With everything moving to tablets I find it funny that they would accept a photo copy of a page but not a digital one... there really isn't a way to prove ownership either way.
|
I hadn't thought of the watermark issue though, I will have to send along an email to my VC and get his thoughts on it.
Paul Ryan is correct. Check on the text on the Additional Resources page:
In order to utilize content from an Additional Resource, a player must have a physical copy of the Additional Resource in question, a name-watermarked Paizo PDF of it, or a printout of the relevant pages from it, as well as a copy of the current version of the Additional Resources list. (If you're bringing a printout of the pages, it must be from the actual Paizo PDF and not text copied and pasted into a blank word processing document). Since the core assumption for Pathfinder Society Organized Play is the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook, Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Pathfinder Society Field Guide, and the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary, we cannot assume that every Game Master will have the products listed below. As such, it's up to players to bring these items in order to familiarize their Game Masters with the rules.
|
I would suggest only photocopying in the pages relevant to the character/s you will be using at the con.
In order to use additional resources for your character, you must bring a physical copy of the book with you or printouts of the appropriate pages detailing cost (if any) and explanations for each feat, item, spell, prestige class, and so on that you use. One need not prove ownership of said material but they must be from a legally obtained PDF or book printed by Paizo Publishing; content reproduced in other sources under the Open Gaming License (such as an online reference document or a homemade omnibus) is not legal with regard to use in sanctioned Pathfinder Society play.
Bold formatting mine. If you photocopy it, it will be like much of the rest of organized play and run on the honour system. That said, they also say in the Additional Resources guide quoted above that PDFs need to have the watermark. Sucks when trying to go paperless, but a few pages is a LOT lighter than the whole book. Thankfully, as mentioned, the PDF's are MUCH cheaper than the books and well worth the investment for going paperless. Never underestimate the worth of actual paper and binding, though. (Yeah, I'm a bit old-fashioned.)
|
I really do hope that isn't the case though. With everything moving to tablets I find it funny that they would accept a photo copy of a page but not a digital one... there really isn't a way to prove ownership either way.
From the sounds of it, a photo copy of a page is NOT acceptable ... an actual print out from a legitimately purchased, name-watermarked Paizo PDF is though.
|
| 1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Considering how easy it is to share PDFs (once they are created), I think Paizo might not be happy to approve homemade PDFs as legal PFS sources even if they come from hardcopy books. It amounts to creating a bandit copy of the material.
Since PDFs are available from Paizo and you are essentially creating the same thing, but without watermarks - it is a bandit copy.
At my tables I would not accept a homemade PDF, but I would be okay with a few photo copied pages, taking the player's word that they have the book at home and didn't want to lug it around.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
How about a print out and a picture with todays newspaper and my copy of the book?
|
|
I would suggest only photocopying in the pages relevant to the character/s you will be using at the con.
In order to use additional resources for your character, you must bring a physical copy of the book with you or printouts of the appropriate pages detailing cost (if any) and explanations for each feat, item, spell, prestige class, and so on that you use. One need not prove ownership of said material but they must be from a legally obtained PDF or book printed by Paizo Publishing; content reproduced in other sources under the Open Gaming License (such as an online reference document or a homemade omnibus) is not legal with regard to use in sanctioned Pathfinder Society play.Bold formatting mine. If you photocopy it, it will be like much of the rest of organized play and run on the honour system.
At my tables I would not accept a homemade PDF, but I would be okay with a few photo copied pages, taking the player's word that they have the book at home and didn't want to lug it around.
+1 to this.
This seems illogical as the FAQ quoted above states that proof of ownership is not required (which is what I assume people are afraid of with a PDF), but until that issue is revisited and clarified I suppose scanning the books to PDF for my personal use in the hotel room as a reference, and then a paper photocopy of the same page in the character folio in case it comes up wouldn't be much harder, simply redundant. I guess home made PDF's would fall under the category of a home made omnibus.
|
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
I don't know what bost to evidence that would provide, BNW. It would say that you were in the same room as the book today.
We presume that people have legal copies. I probably won't notice if your PDF isn't watermarked (I have a hard time seeing the watermark on my own copies...), but if I do, I'll ask you about it.
In the past, if one of my players got illegal copies from someone else ("my Venture Captain copied these out for me"; yeah, sure) I've worked with them to get legal rights to use them. I've never had anybody refuse to do so, but if I ever run into that, I'd follow Mike's directions: ask them to leave the table and report their PFS number and the name on the watermark.
I don't know what boost to evidence that would provide, BNW. It would say that you were in the same room as the book today.
well, presumably if i can borrow the book to take into my bathroom to take the ransom picture I could borrow it to play the game. I mean I could very well ask what proof of ownership there was in holding the book, it could be borrowed, stolen, etc.
|
|
OK, no more cons as a reason to scan books, now I just want to load them on for faster searching and indexing. Throwing the PFS proof concept out the window (I ended up just taking the books that I needed with me) anyone have any scanning software suggestions?
Going to start back-filling in my collection of books starting with the companions line, and I'd prefer to make it a full run without having to re-buy the pdf's for 5 of the books.
The software I use for actually making a PDF is Nuance's PDF Converter Pro, It can be used to do a total OCR of the book, or you can keep the scanned pages for reading with the OCR of the text in the layer behind. Accuracy of the OCR is not guaranteed, but that's not an issue for my purposes. YMMV. I'm also still of the opinion that it's a lot more efficient to just buy the PDFs if they're available than it is to scan them myself. It's more fun reading them than going over them character by character to make sure everything's come out right.
Before actually making the PDF I clean up the scanned pages in Corel's PaintShop Pro. I've been using versions of that since Jasc's PSP2, and I've found it pretty good value for money over the years.
As an alternative, for other ebook formats I use Omnipage Ultimate for the OCR, another Nuance product. That makes a pretty good epub from a set of raw scans, which I then clean up in a freeware program called Sigil and convert as needed with Calibre.
Chief Technical Officer
|
Accuracy of the OCR is not guaranteed, but that's not an issue for my purposes. YMMV.
It's been maybe 8 years since I've attempted to run OCR on a scanned page, but the last time I tried, the results were less than appealing. It worked okay if your content used a non-stylised font like Courier or Times, in 10- or 12-point type, printed in black on a white background, but every step away from that made for a giant decrease in accuracy... and Pathfinder books are pretty much the direct opposite of that.
My recommendation is that you find a way to try before you buy, because I think there's a very good chance you'll find it's not worth the effort.
It's been maybe 8 years since I've attempted to run OCR on a scanned page, but the last time I tried, the results were less than appealing.
Even where the characters themselves are correct, and not involving errors like .com becoming .corn, the results with even a relatively simple black and white page with two columns still generally are a semi-random mixture of sizes and fonts, sometimes in bold and/or italic as well. It does generally end up in the right places on the page though.
|
|
as a late comer to subscription, I had a full AP (hardcopies) and no PDF.
I was also looking at scanning them to get them on had (and on Tablet).
but then, I looked at their price on paizo and bought them all here.
I agree it might be a little bit more expensive than buying the software once and manually scanning everything, but the quality of their PDF and the time I saved convinced me.