HP Archeves

[Duane Hess]

Toml:

I don't have any PDF examples nor specific equipment model numbers, but the equipment Chris Drehr mentioned should allow a page to lay flat. He mentioned a Xerox copier but also there are "flatbed book scanners" or "edge scanners," names like that.

One side of the book hangs (literally) over the side of the flatbed; basically if you have a book with 1" or more space from the binding you should get a flat image.

The Canon unit (from the late 90's?; maybe very early '00s) was beveled or slanted, IIRC. Focusing was also projected (prism?-don't know) from the edge so the paper directly on the glass focused onto the image recording mechanism. i.e. everything was flat down to the approx. 1/8"-1/4" from the glued binding. If I recall, the scanner or scanner utilities could automatically clip the last 1/4" or clip & fill the last 1/4" with whitespace matching the paper. Also, if I recall for even or odd pages, the scanner/utilities could automatically flip the image 180 degrees. As there was only one scanning edge and the book would need to be rotated when going to the other page.

Just an FYI, pretty sure such scanners still exist. Always remembered them as being flatbeds and not much more expensive than "regular" flatbeds.

For what its worth.

Have to admit the leftmost device DaveF shows might be large enough to scan circuit boards. Most inexpensive flatbeds aren't big enough for large circuit boards. Some collectors have wanted PCB images from some of my equipment and still be able to read chip numbers, PCB markings, etc. But I have no good way of accomplishing it. (I'm poor, maybe the leftmost device isn't cheap either) If anyone has good ideas about imaging PCBs would like to know. Only digital cameras I have are cell phones & they don't work well at all, especially when 6"-12" from a surface.