Re: Converting a manual into a PDF

["vector" <root@localhost>]

"brad" <mrbrad(remove)@ll.net> wrote in message 
1113a153880qgaf@corp.supernews.com">news:1113a153880qgaf@corp.supernews.com...
>
> now... i have a lot of stuff  i'd like to .pdf a lot of is is already in
> xerox form...
> anyone know off hand the cheapest but best xerox for home use i could get
> (or saw something at best buy) where i could just toss say a  bunch of
> xeroxed docs
> into a sheet feeder and walk away and it is scanned eventually 
> automatically
> into
> a .pdf doc..again they exist...but if the beast is 2 grand..i may have to
> wait a year
> or two for the feature to trickle down to my income level...

The answer really depends on exactly what you're looking for.  First, I 
assume by "xeroxed" you mean "photocopied"?  (I ask because I've also seen 
people use the word "xeroxed" in some unexpected ways.)  Second, are the 
photocopies duplex (stuff on both sides of the paper) or simplex?  Duplex 
scanners are quite a bit pricier than simplex ones.  Lastly, do you need 
color scans?  (Ditto on costliness.)

I can't make a specific recommendation for your needs, but you can almost 
certainly find something to address your needs on eBay.  Search from the 
main page for "ADF" (meaning "automatic document feeder" and limit the 
search to the Computers & Networking >> Scanners category.  Click on the 
buy-it-now tab to limit the output, then sort by price, lowest first.  Now 
you'll see 10-20 home scanners at the top, all with ADFs attached, in the 
$20 - $50 range.  Almost certainly none of them will do duplex scanning. 
(You can simulate a duplex scan by flipping the document batch over and 
rejoining the halves, at the cost of additional time.)  Some of the scanners 
may do color.  You can broaden the search by getting away from buy-it-now if 
you want.  "ADF" is the magic phrase.

Most home multifunction printers (MFPs) also have ADFs attached now, but the 
cost of buying a new MFP will exceed the cost of a scanner with ADF 
attachment from eBay.  The size of the hopper (another synonym for sheet 
feeder) tends to be small, too -- usually not more than 25 pages.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=cat01017&type=category

The real cost, if you don't already have a copy, will be obtaining Acrobat. 
You could sidestep that issue by finding a cheap or free PDF printer driver 
(e.g., http://www.pdf995.com/, 
http://www.blackice.com/PrinterDriverW2000PDF.htm).  In that case, you'd 
scan your documents in using Microsoft Office Document Imaging (MODI) or 
similar, then reprint the scans to the PDF printer driver.  That's only 
slightly more costly in terms of your time than scanning using Acrobat.  If 
you use MODI, you could avoid the PDF printer driver altogether and save the 
documents out in the proprietary MDI format instead of PDF, but then your 
scans wouldn't be very portable.

Whatever route you take, make sure you can scan at a minimum of 200 dpi, 
black-and-white, or 150 dpi in color.

Incidentally, how many pages do you have left to scan?  100?  1,000? 
Googol?