Flatbed_Scanner_Workflow/readme.md

<h1 align="center">Flatbed_Scanner_Workflow</h1>

## Getting started

This set of scripts was written for the Text Laundrette workshop. The workshop takes place in the Publication Station, WDkA building.<br> Rotterdam, 03-02-2020<br>It is a workflow to turn the pictures from a Flatbed Scanner into a final OCRed PDF.<br>
<br>
## About the Workshop

<em>DESCRIPTION</em>
<p>We will use a home-made, DIY book scanner, and open-source software to scan, process, and add digital features to printed texts brought by the participants to the workshop. Ultimately, we will include them in the “bootleg library”, a shadow library accessible over a local network.</p>

<p>Shadow libraries operate outside of legal copyright frameworks, in response to decreased open access to knowledge. This workshop aims to extend our research on libraries, their sociability, and methods by which we can add provenance to texts included in public or private, legal or extra-legal collections.</p>

<p>Participants should bring: a printed text, which they’d like to digitize and share.</p>

<br><br>
##Dependencies
###Brew (MAC) or apt-get (LINUX)
<p>You’ll need the command-line tools for Xcode installed.</p>

```bash
xcode-select --install
```

<p>After install Homebrew.</p>

```bash
ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
```

<p>Run the following command once you’re done to ensure Homebrew is installed and working properly:</p>

```bash
brew doctor
```

```bash
sudo apt-get install python3 python3-pip imagemagick poppler pdfunite
```

```bash
brew install python3 python3-pip imagemagick poppler pdfunite
```
<br>
###PIP3

```bash
sudo pip3 install pdf2image Pillow time logging opencv-python pytesseract
```

<br>
##How to use
<p>Your scans must look like this for the scripts to perform right.</p>

                                   RIGHT PAGE
                             —————————————————————
                            |                     |
                            |——————————           |
                            |           |         |
                            |           |         |
                            |           |         |
                            |           |         |
                            |           |         |
                            |        01 |         |
                            |——————————           |
                            |                     |
                             —————————————————————
    
      LEFT PAGE                RIGHT PAGE
     —————————————————————   —————————————————————
    |                     | |                     |
    |           ——————————| |——————————           |
    |         |           | |           |         |
    |         |           | |           |         |
    |         |           | |           |         |
    |         |           | |           |         |
    |         |           | |           |         |
    |         | 02        | |        03 |         |
    |          —————————— | |——————————           |
    |                     | |                     |
     —————————————————————   —————————————————————


<p>Add your pictures from the book scanner to the folder "/scans"</p>

<p>Make all the files executable.</p>

```bash
sudo chmod 777 merge_scans.sh workshop_stream.sh marge_files.sh
```

<p>In case you want to skip any of the scripts just comment out in the shell code, <em>workshop_stream.sh</em>.</p>

<p>Run ./workshop_stream.sh</p>


<p>Wait :)</p>

<br><br>
##Aditional information
The workflow follows these scripts, by successive order:

###Create 3 directories

```bash
mkdir split
mkdir ocred
mkdir cropped
```
###Merge the files in the directory <em>scans</em>
<p>All the scans will be appended to one pdf called out.pdf</p>
```bash
./merge_scans.sh
```

###Burst the pdf in <em>scans</em>
<p>Burst this pdf, renaming all the files so they can be iterated later.</p>
```bash
python3 burstpdf.py
```

###Cropping the bounding boxes
<p>The pages are now in their original position, but they have a bounding box. This script iterates through them and crops the highest contrast area found.</p>
```bash
python3 bounding_box.py
```

###OCR
<p>In this part we OCR the jpg, turning these into PDFs.</p>
```bash
python3 tesseract_ocr.py
```

###Merge all the files and create the pdf
<p>The OCRed pages are now joined into their final PDF, your book is ready :)</p>
```bash
./merge_files.sh
```
<br><br>
## License
The package is available as open source under the terms of the [MIT License](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT).