Digital photo of a page to be viewed on mac and pc

I have to take a digital photograph of a page (US letter size, mostly
text). The resulting computer file would be distrubuted among several
people who for viewing and printing on both Macs and PC's.

I do not have any way to know who will have what software installed on
their computer, so I must assume a basic generic setup.

With that in mind, (1) What format do I want? (2) What size the file
should be in pixels, for it to be viewed comfortably on screen and
printed?

Thanks.

In article , RPS
wrote:

I have to take a digital photograph of a page (US letter size, mostly
text).

You'd really be much better off using a scanner.

The resulting computer file would be distrubuted among several people
who for viewing and printing on both Macs and PC's.

I do not have any way to know who will have what software installed
on their computer, so I must assume a basic generic setup.

With that in mind, (1) What format do I want?

PDF, ideally. Basically everyone can also open GIF and JPEG files, but
it'll be more work for the people printing them to get them to fill
(but not spill over) a single page.

(2) What size the file should be in pixels, for it to be viewed
comfortably on screen and printed?

1275x1650 (150 DPI) *minimum* for a decent 8.5x11 print. Twice that
would be better.

--
"That's George Washington, the first president, of course. The interesting thing
about him is that I read three--three or four books about him last year. Isn't
that interesting?"
- George W. Bush to reporter Kai Diekmann, May 5, 2006

ZnU wrote:

You'd really be much better off using a scanner.

I don't have scanner (dumped my all-in-one for a nice laser printer),
but if it is that much better I could see if Kinko's would do it.

PDF, ideally. Basically everyone can also open GIF and JPEG files, but
it'll be more work for the people printing them to get them to fill
(but not spill over) a single page.

Yes, that was my concern, which is why asked what pixel-setting should
I use.

(2) What size the file should be in pixels, for it to be viewed
comfortably on screen and printed?

1275x1650 (150 DPI) *minimum* for a decent 8.5x11 print. Twice that
would be better.

You'd really be much better off using a scanner.

taking a macro with a digital camera is pretty decent nowadays. of
course scanner is more ideal, but the digicam will work perfectly fine
too.

PDF, ideally. Basically everyone can also open GIF and JPEG files, but
it'll be more work for the people printing them to get them to fill
(but not spill over) a single page.

if you're taking a digicam, then the native format will be jpeg, so
just send them a jpeg. if it's just 1 page, most image viewers have
built-in functionality to resize an image to print on 1 page (at least
Windows Picture Viewer does, and if windows does, then surely Mac
does).

1275x1650 (150 DPI) *minimum* for a decent 8.5x11 print. Twice that
would be better.

Yup 150-300 dpi. So roughly, you'll need between 3-6 megapixel image.

RPS wrote:
ZnU wrote:

You'd really be much better off using a scanner.

I don't have scanner (dumped my all-in-one for a nice laser printer),
but if it is that much better I could see if Kinko's would do it.

PDF, ideally. Basically everyone can also open GIF and JPEG files, but
it'll be more work for the people printing them to get them to fill
(but not spill over) a single page.

Yes, that was my concern, which is why asked what pixel-setting should
I use.

(2) What size the file should be in pixels, for it to be viewed
comfortably on screen and printed?
1275x1650 (150 DPI) *minimum* for a decent 8.5x11 print. Twice that
would be better.

A standard fine res fax is 200 DPI, so that would give you some idea of what is
generally accepted as readable text.

On Tue, 30 Jan 2007 07:26:54 GMT, RPS wrote:

|:I have to take a digital photograph of a page (US letter size, mostly
|:text). The resulting computer file would be distrubuted among several
|eople who for viewing and printing on both Macs and PC's.
|:
|:I do not have any way to know who will have what software installed on
|:their computer, so I must assume a basic generic setup.
|:
|:With that in mind, (1) What format do I want? (2) What size the file
|:should be in pixels, for it to be viewed comfortably on screen and
|rinted?
|:
|:Thanks.

why not just put the image file into a pdf?
that should make it easier for everyone.

-Art- (not Art)

On Jan 30, 2:26 am, RPS wrote:
I have to take a digital photograph of a page (US letter size, mostly
text). The resulting computer file would be distrubuted among several
people who for viewing and printing on both Macs and PC's.

I do not have any way to know who will have what software installed on
their computer, so I must assume a basic generic setup.

With that in mind, (1) What format do I want? (2) What size the file
should be in pixels, for it to be viewed comfortably on screen and
printed?

Thanks.

There is a difference in resolution for projection and print. For
print you want final page size x 300ppi. For projection (in
PowerPoint) 8 inches high x width at 100ppi. Image for the higher res
and resize the image for projection. The biggest problem in
photographing books is keeping the page flat, very necessary and
reasonably difficult. That is why a scanner is a good investment, even
a $100 one.

Tom

"tomm42" wrote in message
oups.com...


On Jan 30, 2:26 am, RPS wrote:
I have to take a digital photograph of a page (US letter size, mostly
text). The resulting computer file would be distrubuted among several
people who for viewing and printing on both Macs and PC's.

I do not have any way to know who will have what software installed on
their computer, so I must assume a basic generic setup.

With that in mind, (1) What format do I want? (2) What size the file
should be in pixels, for it to be viewed comfortably on screen and
printed?

Thanks.

There is a difference in resolution for projection and print. For
print you want final page size x 300ppi. For projection (in
PowerPoint) 8 inches high x width at 100ppi. Image for the higher res
and resize the image for projection. The biggest problem in
photographing books is keeping the page flat, very necessary and
reasonably difficult. That is why a scanner is a good investment, even
a $100 one.

Tom


For print, Adobe PDF format would be about as universal as he could get. If
his scanner cannot scan directly to PDF, he can scan as a TIF and then use a
freeware converter application to make the file a PDF. PrimoPDF can be
downloaded for free.

I have to take a digital photograph of a page (US letter size, mostly
text). The resulting computer file would be distrubuted among several
people who for viewing and printing on both Macs and PC's.

I do not have any way to know who will have what software installed on
their computer, so I must assume a basic generic setup.

With that in mind, (1) What format do I want? (2) What size the file
should be in pixels, for it to be viewed comfortably on screen and
printed?

Two things to keep in mind:

First, if you use JPG for file compression --- and you almost
certainly will, use a high quality setting. Otherwise it will be
hard to read the text.

Secondly, you probably need different files for viewing and for
printing. For viewing, assume 72dpi, which is to say, a file size of
about 612x792. For printing, you'll want at least 150 dpi, and
preferably 300 dpi, though the files will be so large that no one will
want to use them. In general, a graphics file is a bad way to give
someone something to print.

-Joel

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On Tue, 30 Jan 2007 07:26:54 +0000, RPS wrote:

I have to take a digital photograph of a page (US letter size, mostly
text). The resulting computer file would be distrubuted among several
people who for viewing and printing on both Macs and PC's.

I do not have any way to know who will have what software installed on
their computer, so I must assume a basic generic setup.

With that in mind, (1) What format do I want? (2) What size the file
should be in pixels, for it to be viewed comfortably on screen and
printed?

Thanks.

jpeg or pdf would probably be good choices.