(They also use R, since it's what I'm most comfortable with, but you can easily convert it to bash.) The only step that requires manual review is the ScanTailor step, but ScanTailor itself is pretty fast. I use Ubuntu, and I've created scripts for steps 1, 3, and 4.
(Optional) I use pdfnup to create a PDF with multiple pages per page, which can be convenient when printing the resulting file.To combine these into PDFs, I use tiffcp and tiff2pdf from the libtiff library. Use ScanTailor to crop, straighten, standardize page sizes, and clean up the visual appearance of the pages.It's a little bit more involved, but I'm overall very happy with the results.
I have to print badly scanned PDFs several times a week, and I was getting tired of wasting toner in my printer because of all of the black page edges. If you are not satisfied with the result you can try tweaking the curves file. Make sure the "Darken Scanned Text" fixup is selected and click Fix.
Choose it and click OK to save the fixup. Now in the Dot gain curve setting drop-down our "Darken Scanned Text" curve should appear. crv file before restarting Acrobat, so just choose some other curve for now and click OK to save the fixup.Ĭlose Acrobat and open the PDF file you want to edit in Acrobat.įind the "Darken Scanned Text" fixup we created before and click its Edit button. Sadly you can't choose the newly created. Make sure to preserve the tab characters as they are): DisplayNameđĝarken Scanned Textīe sure you have selected the right options, by using the check marks, amongst (1) Apply to device dependent CMYK and spot colors, (2) Apply to device dependent RGB, (3) Apply to device independent colors. Make a duplicate of one of the files, rename it to "Darken Scanned Text.crv" and open it in a text editor.Įdit the file as follows to create a curve which darkens the images so everything above 30% black becomes 100% black (you can copy/paste from below. Under Type of fixup choose Adjust dot gain.Ĭlick the Dot gain curve setting drop-down and select Open folder with configuration files. Name the new fixup something like "Darken Scanned Text". In the Options drop-down choose Create Fixup. I looked into this because I sometimes have the same need and I found a solution using only a Fixup in Acrobat which can apply a curve to each image of the PDF.