Frequently Asked Questions
Got a question? Find our answers here. If your questions hasn’t been answered, use our contact us form.
1. How are you able to list your prices upfront when most other scanning firms make you contact them for a quote?
Firms do this so that their sales teams can work their ‘magic’. Our customers have been quoted northwards of £200 for books we scanned for £12.99.
Right from the beginning we wanted to make sure all of our prices were upfront with no hidden costs. The quoted prices are the final prices. We’re able to do this largely by keeping our costs low. We do not operate or man a phone line but reply to all queries send before 5pm on the same working day. We do not waste money on social media as it’s completely irrelevant to scanning. All of our costs are scanning costs.
2. Can you return my books?
Yes. Simply include a SAE or we can arrange for return delivery on completion. Due to the relatively high cost in sending books this isn’t included in our prices . Please note that the spine is removed prior to scanning so it would just be the loose pages.
3. Can I send you the books directly through Amazon or other online retailers?
Yes. Address the Amazon parcel to yourself but with our address – 8 Coniston Drive, Lincoln, LN6 8EW. If they’re arriving separately please write every book title in the ‘Order Notes’ section at checkout.
4. What counts as a book and what counts as documents?
A book will in the vast majority of cases have an ISBN Number. The most common examples are novels, cookbooks, self-improvement books, textbooks, comics, etc.
Pages that are held together either in a binder or with staples or glue are documents.
If in doubt contact our customer support at support@digitisemybooks.co.uk
5. I have a book that contains black and white, greyscale and colour texts and images. Which one do I order?
View it as a hierarchy, with black and white at the bottom and colour at the top. If your book contains black and white and colour, select colour. If black and white and greyscale, select greyscale. There is more information on our black and white, grayscale, colour or page yellowing page.
6. Will the PDF file you send us contain every page of my book?
Every page that has writing on it. This includes the front and back covers. Books often have blank pages in them. In a digital form blank pages are unnecessary and our default position is to remove them. If you would like us to include the blank pages, just send us an email or include it under ‘Order Notes’ at the Checkout.
7. Do you scan hardbacks?
Yes, including the covers.
8. Are there any restrictions in terms of the size of the book?
Yes. The width of the book has to be 8.5″ (21.5cm) or under. There are no restrictions on height. Most books in print today are within those dimensions. We may still be able to scan books over these dimensions if there are generous margins.
9. How will you send me my files?
For files under 2GB our preferred method is WeTransfer. The overwhelming majority of files of files will be under 2GB. As there is no download link it reduces the chance of our emails being filtered to your spam. For files over 2GB we send from our cloud provider.
10. How can I open my file?
You need a PDF reader. If you haven’t already got one you can download one free here – Adobe Reader. It is not advisable to use a web browser.
11. The text in my book goes right up to the margins, does this matter?
Yes. We need at least 0.5cm to de-spine the book, ideally 1cm. Most modern books have at least this space. For older books with a curved spine the more space the better.
12. Can you scan non-English texts?
Yes. We can scan any language. If you would like to search for key words, our OCR recognition software currently supports over two hundred languages.
Visit our Supported Language page for further information.
13. Can you translate from another language to English.
No.
14 How do I place my order?
Simply visit the Digital Scanning Shop. Once inside you can add the package(s) to the Shopping Cart. When you’ve finished adding the packages, click on ‘Checkout’ to complete the order.
15. How do I pay?
Our checkout uses Stripe. Stripe enables you to order with Visa and Mastercard and a variety of other forms of payment. You do not need a Stripe account yourself to complete the order.
16. If I order 1 set, which is 350 sides, can I send you as many books as I can until they equal 350 sides?
No. The sets aren’t accumulative. 1 set lets you scan any book up to 350 sides. If you have two books, both under 350 sides, then 2 sets are needed.
17. I have concerns about sending my books in the post.
If your book is well packaged and you have had it weighed to ensure the postage is correct, then there should be no concern at all. We also recommend that you write your own name and address on the back of the package. For your peace of mind we send you an email on the day we receive your package. For added peace of mind we recommend that you send your package using a tracked delivery service.
1. Will I be able to search for key words?
Yes. As long as the language is on our Supported Language page.
2. What is OCR?
It stands for Optical Character Recognition. It is the conversion of scanned images to readable and editable text-based documents.
3. Can you turn books with page yellowing into a plain white background?
If it’s mild page yellowing yes, if it’s quite pronounced then no.
4. Can I edit the PDF?
You would need professional software. We don’t restrict access to the PDFs in any way so as long as you have professional software you can edit your files.
1. What is the main advantage of ordering a Word file?
Not everybody has a professional PDF reader and so editing options are limited. Even with professional software changes to a PDF can be complex and only possible within certain parameters.
Word files give you complete control of your editing options.
2. Are Word conversions 100% accurate?
If your book is mainly text based then the conversions from PDF to Word are incredible and the formatting and colours are kept largely intact.
However, whilst the PDF is the scanned, ‘mirror image’ of your book, the Word file is a conversion of the PDF. If there are any blemishes on the page, or the text is obscured then the resulting Word file will likely convert these as meaningless symbols. Similarly if there is very unusual formatting then this may not convert well either.
3. Are all books suitable to be converted to Word?
No. It’s mainly for books with a continuous body of text. Some books, for example comic books, just aren’t suitable for a Word conversion.
1. What’s the main advantage of converting to an audio file?
The ability to have your books and documents read to you. You can listen to your files on the move, whilst going for a run, or catching a train. Maybe you prefer to listen to stories rather than read them. If you’re in business you can include it as part of a presentation. If you’re in education this option helps if you have pupils with learning difficulties or visual impairments. Modern Foreign Language teachers use this option so that their students can hear their essays read back to them. They make brilliant revision tools as well.
2. What languages does this option support?
Visit our OCR to Voice – Supported Languages page.
3. Can you translate from English to another language or vice-versa?
No.
4. Do spelling and grammar matter?
Yes they do. To take an extreme example; if your document hasn’t any punctuation at all, then the audio file you receive back will be a voice speaking continuously, without pausing once. If you want our voices to pause, then you have to punctuate accordingly. Similarly with spelling, if a word is spelt incorrectly it will be converted incorrectly.
5. Can I edit the Word Document before you convert it to an audio file?
Yes. In fact we recommend this. The audio software will read out everything, from the numbers in the content pages, Roman or otherwise, to footnotes and captions under photographs. Most customers don’t want this and want it taken out before the conversion.
6. Is there a time limit to edit the file before sending it back to you?
No. Your order remains open indefinitely until it is complete.
1. Where do I send my books?
8 Coniston Drive, Lincoln, LN6 8EW
2. Why haven’t I received my ‘Books Arrived’ email?
(i) The most likely reason is its gone to your Spam folder. Please check in there and mark it as safe so all future emails go to your inbox. We never send unsolicited emails.
(ii) We may have been unable to identify the package. Please include your name and order number in the parcel.
(iii) The book hasn’t arrived.
3. Is the estimated completion time from when I ordered or from when you receive the books?
It’s from when we both (a) receive the books and (b) payment has cleared.
4. How long should the whole process take?
Non-rush delivery orders usually take between 10 and 12 working days. You can see our estimated completion time on the footer of every page.