Wednesday, December 11, 2013

MAC Users Meeting 12/10/13

Scanning

by Tom Gottfried

Tom has given me permission to publish his notes for Tuesday lasts meeting:

Subject: Scanning There are many types of scanners but for our purpose today we will discuss the most common,
the flatbed scanner.
Most common uses for flatbed scanners:
HP 6500 A, all in one


1. Photos. Photos can be black and white or color. You can scan printed photos, slides, or even
film” or old negatives.

2. Documents.
    1. Important papers
    2. 2. Recipes
    3. 3. Magazine articles
    4. 4. Coupons
The list is endless and only limited to your ingenuity.

3. Odd items, like leaves, flowers, coins, or other 3 dimensional objects . This is where you can
really get creative.

What should I look for when buying a scanner? If you already have a printer you may only need to buy the scanner. However, if you do not have a printer or if your printer is an older model and time it is replaced, give consideration to a multiple use printer, scanner, copier. Yes, you can buy one machine that will do all three functions.

What should I pay for a scanner? You can pay as little as $50 or as much as several thousand. It really depends on how serious you want to get in your photo scanning. For most of us a good quality combination scanner, printer, copier will cost between $100 - $200. If all you plan on scanning are documents, you can pick up a unit for about $50 or less. Go to Staples in the Promenade shopping center and ask for an associate who knows something about scanners. Tell them what you are planning to use it for and ask what machine would be good for you.

Scanners come with various software bundles. This may include photo editing tools and an important tool for documents called OCR. (Optical Character Recognition) If you scan a document, it is actually a picture, whether you save it as a .jpeg or a PDF file. OCR software will scan the document and convert it into a document that can be edited. In other words, if you scan a recipe called Martha’s Favorite Casserole and you would prefer it to be called Mom’s Favorite Casserole, using OCR will allow you to do that.

Once I scan a photo or document, where do I put it so that I can easily find it? Your scanner will store your scans in a pre-determined file if you do not specify where you want to put it. In Finder, you can set up your folders and files before hand. For example, let’s say you are scanning a number of recipes and want to categorize them. Click on Finder. A box will open.Click on Documents. Go to the top left of the page and click on File and then click on “Folder”. In the next row of the box you will see “untitled folder”. Hit the return button and “untitled folder” will be highlighted. You can now rename it recipes. Go back to File and hit folder once more. In the next row you will see untitled folder again. When it is highlighted you can create a folder named desserts. Go back and highlight Recipes again and go to file and hit new folder again. You will see untitled folder again. Once again, you can call it whatever you want. In this “row” you can create as many categories as you want. Once you are ready to enter dessert recipes, click on desserts and then go to File and if you want to even further define them, go to File and create another folder and “untitled folder will appear once again and you can create various categories of desserts.


For photos, once you’ve scanned them into a folder you can drag them into iPhoto or Aperture, or whatever photo software you are using. Or, when you are scanning, you can tell the scanning program where you want to save the file. But, you will need to make sure your photo library set up to receive the photos. In other words, if you don’t have a file system set up in your photo library it will be much like taking them and dumping them into a box just like we did with all those old pictures. And this is what we are trying to get away from.
No matter how you create or import a file, if you save it but allow your Mac decide where to put it, you may find that once you’ve created a number of files, they may be hard to find. Why not create your own file system the way you want it? Then you can tell your Mac where you want to put your precious files. Otherwise it’s like the messy old desk with piles of papers on it making what you’re looking for a real pain.
If you have any questions on scanning you can call me at house phone 7251 or my cell is 262-844-6008. Or, I’m normally at the Mac meeting around 12:30 and will stay after the meeting if you need help.

Tom Gottfried

I've inserted links to some websites which give more info.  Googling scanning will turn up more info.  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfZcFtHfhoc How to use an HP all in one.  

Thanks very much Tom!


Next meeting 12/17/13.  See you then.  

Mike

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