Recording Thoughts

How Did You Digitize Your Journals?

I’ve got about 35 volumes of journals I’ve kept over the years, and I’d like to digitize them. The problem is there are so many options out there it’s overwhelming at first glance.

Mark Koester as a nice article, but it’s from 2019 and I suspect things are quite a bit different now.

I’m not going to buy a scanner to do this. I do have good lighting, and some space and a table, and I can get a pane of glass to hold things flat. I have an old iPhone 8 I can dedicate to the task, or an iPhone 14 Pro Max, or a Sony ZV-E10. Maybe the last with a zoom lens would be the best choice.

I’m not an artist so I don’t need to capture subtle shades or brushstrokes. I do want color, and I do want whatever OCR has to offer to make them searchable after the fact. I’m in the Apple ecosystem.

I’m just starting to search for ideas, so if you’ve got links or suggestions please let me know!

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Comments

4 responses to “How Did You Digitize Your Journals?”

  1. Julie Strietelmeier Avatar
    Julie Strietelmeier

    I’m thinking about doing this too. So far I’ve figured out that if you upload the images to Google Keep or just to your iPhone’s camera roll, that you can search on text even if it’s handwritten which is pretty cool.

    Reply
    1. Steve Avatar
      Steve

      Hi Julie – thanks for the comment! I knew I could search scans in Notes, but I didn’t know it worked for photos. I will have to give that a try!

      Reply
  2. detha prastyphylia Avatar
    detha prastyphylia

    @blog if you’re in the apple ecosystem you could scan stuff using the ‘notes’ app!

    1. Steve Avatar
      Steve

      Thanks for the comment! Yes, you’re right, but having it stuck in just that ecosystem makes me a little queasy. But it works really well for text search.

      Reply

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