In what’s surely a change intended to better meet the needs of their customers, the newspaper changed the crossword layout just a little teeny bit, so my previous script needed a tweak:
#!/bin/bash echo Scanning... scanimage --mode Gray --opt_emulategray=yes --resolution 300 -l 5 -t 0 -x 105 -y 195 --format=pnm > /tmp/scan.pnm echo Converting... convert /tmp/scan.pnm -level 45%,60% -resize 2400x3150 +repage -unsharp 0 /tmp/trim.png convert -density 300 -size 2550x3300 canvas:white /tmp/trim.png -gravity center -composite /tmp/page.pdf echo Printing... lp -n 2 /tmp/page.pdf echo Done!
It now spits out two large-print copies, to better meet their actual needs, at least for two of their customers.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 
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5 responses to “Tweaked Crossword Scanning”
For what it’s worth, my Epson Perfection 1660 scanner fell off the driver list some time after XP, but a third-party vendor makes a decent product. hamrick dot com makes Vuescan, which will support a bunch of scanners. The demo (watermarked pics) version is good enough for proof-of-concept (worked fine on Win 7), while paying $40 will get the basic version released. An additional $40 gets the advanced features, including OCR. The last time I did OCR was on the Epson software, but I’ll buy this if I need it again.
The automagic fade correction does a great job at de-magenta-ing old Ektachrome slides. Did some my father took in 1961 and the results were wonderful. I had a bunch from the ’70s that really weren’t taken just after sunset…
It does support the HP3970 if you ever need to flirt with the dark side. [grin]
The local newspaper decided to try shrinking the Prince Valiant comic one week. They got the text down to a couple of pixels per letter. Oops. Even the local advertisers are giving up on that paper.
I have sworn a mighty oath on the bones of my ancestors to never rebuild another Windows box, for neither love nor money.
I haven’t checked recently, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find the PoJo deep in the third or fourth Peanuts rerun. There are good contemporary comics, even ones suitable for a family paper. Not that I’d become a subscriber just for the comics; the PoJo can’t even get yard sale descriptions right, let alone the news.
Understood on the boxen. If I (had the budget for) broadband, I’d take more of a plunge into Linux, but downloading Slackware was a huge, painful undertaking.
Speaking of painful, I got the heater blend door fix done (mostly, still have to reattach to cover and install the glovebox) on the Ranger. A few hours of cutting in tight quarters, but beyond that, straightforward. Seems the OEM folks decided that ABS would take periodic stressing while the blend door servomotor calibrated. Wrong. Apparently a widespread problem in various (mostly American) vehicles in the mid-late 90s and onward.
Now the interrupt stack is cleared, and I can get to the regularly scheduled projects for a while. I hope.
Vuescan runs just fine on Linux as well
But, alas, it requires the HP scanner driver and that doesn’t run on Linux…