Fujitsu ScanSnap 510 + Moleskine Cahiers

[Daniel Choi]

I recently bought a Fujitsu ScanSnap 510 for Macintosh computers. It's
a sheet-fed scanner than can scan 100+ pages of double-sided sheets in
just a few minutes.

I started using it to scan in my Moleskine (XL) Cahiers, and it's been
fantastic. I cut a Cahier along the binding and separate the pages.
Then I put the stack into the scanner feeder and press the scan
button. In about 4 minutes, the whole Cahier is turned into a
beautiful PDF, in color.

The PDF version of one Moleskine XL Cahier is only about 20 MB in
size. So you can store about 50 Moleskine cahiers in 1GB, which is not
bad at all considering these are your own precious handwritten notes
and reflections.

Once you put these notes into digital form, you can carry around
dozens or hundreds of Moleskine Cahiers in your laptop. You can also
put digital bookmarks in them for finding particular pages quickly,
extract and make copies of individual pages, and do lots of other
things that software lets you do.

I just wanted to let people know about this. For a long time, I've
been torn between the advantages of taking notes on a computer and the
pleasures of using real pen and paper. Now I don't feel torn anymore.
I can have both.

[sbraley]

This is the coolest thing! At first I thought, how could he cut up
his moleskines, but if I could actually see all the pages of mine, and
have them with me, it would be worth it. Thanks for the great idea.

Shirley

[hanserik]

Sounds like a very cool idea!

You could download Evernote (http://www.evernote.com) and import your
PDF's into Evernote.

You can even have Evernote watch the directory you are creating your
PDF's in and Evernote will import them automatically as soon as a PDF
is created.

Evernote can also recognise handwriting! (I'm not sure if Evernote can
recognise handwriting inside PDF's though). But It certainly can
recognise handwriting in image-files.

Actually, Evernote can do a lot more and it is free! Check it out :-)

Hans-Erik

[Daniel Choi]

Here's a picture of what two pages of the a Moleskine Cahier look like
after they're scanned and turned into a PDF. The picture is much
smaller than what the real PDF looks like, but you can get a sense of
the color and the accuracy of the reproduction.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36787013@N00/3210307314/