Each option, explained.
Regular or glossy?
The first split. Most novels and academic books are regular paper. Magazines, cookbooks and most textbooks are glossy — the page is coated, often shiny, sometimes squeaks under your finger.
No coating. This is the paper type of most novels, biographies, and academic and historical books. It is the default for most printed books.
Glossy paper is often found in magazines, cookbooks and textbooks. It is usually shiny, smooth and reflective. Holds ink crisply for photography but needs different scan settings.
Diagrams or vivid imagery?
For glossy books only. If a book is full of cooking shots, travel photography or saturated illustration, it goes in the Photos & Vivid pile. If it’s a textbook with charts and line art, it’s Text & Diagrams.
This option is for glossy books that do not contain any photos or vivid images. They may contain simple charts or diagrams. Textbooks often fall into this category.
This option is for glossy books that contain photos and/or vivid images. Cookbooks, travel books, reference books and magazines often fall into this category.
New or old. B&W or colour.
Think of this as a hierarchy. If pages are yellowing or torn, pick that — even if the book also has colour. Otherwise: anything in colour → colour. Otherwise → B&W/Greyscale.
Plain white pages, black text. The most common choice for modern novels and academic books.
Same option and price as B&W. These contain shades of grey, usually pictures or photographs, but may also be text boxes and graphs.
These usually contain either colourful photographs or pictures such as this one, or the writing itself may be in colour.
Older books, age-darkened paper and/or tears. Yellowed pages can be made clean and white again with page clean-up.
Regular or higher?
Regular is plenty for everyday reading, searching and archiving — and is suitable for all text-only books. Higher resolution is for graphic-heavy books, anything you plan to project on a wall, or pages you’d like to print at scale. Skip higher resolution if the book is yellowing — it just amplifies the discolouration.
More than enough for most books. Suitable for all text-only books.
For graphic content, projection, or print reproduction.
PDF — and what else?
Every scan comes as a searchable PDF (OCR included, no extra charge). The mirror of your book, exactly as it looked. You can add other formats per set if you need them.
The result of every scan — a mirror of your book. OCR runs by default so every word is searchable.
Editable conversion of the PDF. Best for continuous prose like novels. We’d recommend a proofread.
One image per page. Useful if you need to drop pages into other documents or presentations.
Make your pages look like new.
Older books turn yellow or brown with age, and old print often scans soft and grey. Page clean-up fixes both, so your book reads like a freshly printed copy — on a tablet, zoomed right in, or printed out. Your PDF stays fully searchable.
Yellowed paper comes back clean and white, with clear dark text. Brown spots, stains and uneven tone are evened out too. Photos get only a gentle colour correction, and deliberately coloured pages are left as they are.
Every letter redrawn as a smooth, solid black shape that stays sharp however far you zoom in. Traced from your scan, never retyped, so no typos can creep in. Works on any book, yellowed or not.
White pages and razor-sharp text: your old book, better than the day it was printed. The second one is half price, saving you £6 on every set.
Good to know: writing inside photographs isn’t redrawn, and pages with colour printing keep their original letters (they are still whitened). The cover is left as it is unless you ask. Crisper text can’t repair letters that are torn or missing in the book itself, and it makes the file a little larger.
When do you need it?
Standard turnaround is 10–12 working days from arrival. Any of three rush tiers will jump you up the queue.
10–12 working days
Working days from arrival
Working days from arrival
On arrival or next morning
Rush covers scanning only. Page clean-up can’t be hurried, so cleaned-up files follow 2–3 working days later.
Before you send your book
One set covers up to 350 sides. Count each book separately: a 250-side book and a 450-side book need 3 sets in total.
Anything stuck down or fastened on needs our flatbed scanning service instead.
This gives the sharpest, straightest pages. The trimmed pages are securely recycled unless you ask us to return them.
For every 10 sets, the scanning price of your cheapest set is free. Clean-up, Word files and rush are charged on every set.