Digital Book Conversion: Turn Your Physical Books into E‑Books

Got a stack of books you wish you could read on your phone or tablet? You’re not alone. Converting paper books to digital format is easier than you think, and you only need a few tools. Below is a straight‑forward plan that takes you from dusty shelves to searchable e‑books.

Step 1 – Scan Your Pages

The first job is getting a clear image of each page. If you own a flatbed scanner, place the book face‑down and scan at 300 dpi for good quality. No scanner? No problem. Modern smartphones have camera apps that can capture pages in high resolution. Hold the phone steady, use good lighting, and snap each page. Apps like Adobe Scan or Microsoft Lens can auto‑crop and straighten the images for you.

Step 2 – Turn Images into Text with OCR

Now that you have photos or PDFs, you need to make the text searchable. That’s where OCR (Optical Character Recognition) comes in. Free tools like Google Drive’s built‑in OCR or online services such as Smallpdf will read your scanned images and output editable text. Run the OCR on each file, then review for errors—especially with older fonts or decorative headings.

Tip: If your book has lots of illustrations, keep those pages as images and only run OCR on the text‑heavy sections. This keeps the layout looking clean.

Step 3 – Choose the Right File Format

After OCR, you’ll have a document you can edit in Word, Google Docs, or LibreOffice. Save the final version as a PDF for simple reading, or as an ePub if you want a reflowable e‑book that adapts to any screen size. Free converters like Calibre can turn a Word file into ePub with a few clicks.

Remember to add a table of contents if your book is long—most e‑readers use that to let you jump between chapters.

Step 4 – Store and Back Up Your Digital Copies

Keep the digital files safe by saving them in at least two places: your computer’s hard drive and a cloud service like Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive. If you have an external hard drive or a home NAS, add a third copy. This way you won’t lose your work if one device fails.

Step 5 – Share Your New E‑Books

Want to let friends read your digitised books? Upload the PDF or ePub to a private folder and share the link. You can also put the files on a personal library app like Calibre-web, giving you a mini‑online book shelf.

Be mindful of copyright. If the book is still under protection, only share it with people who own a legal copy.

That’s it—five steps to turn any physical book into a handy digital version. Grab your scanner or phone, follow the plan, and enjoy reading your favorite titles anywhere you go.

Caspian Beaumont

How to digitalised my books?

Digitalising books is a great way to make them accessible to a wider audience and to preserve them for future generations. This article provides simple steps to help you digitise your books. Firstly, you will need to scan the book into a digital format, either using a scanner or a smartphone. Secondly, you should use optical character recognition (OCR) software to convert the scanned text into editable text. Thirdly, you can then store the digital files on your computer or an external hard drive. Fourthly, you can then make the digital files available online, either by creating an e-book or uploading them to an online library. Finally, you can also share the digital files with friends and family by sending them a link or a copy of the file. With these steps, you can easily and quickly digitalise your books.