What's the best way to convert a box of old newspaper and magazine clippings to digital files, doing it myself and without spending a lot of money?
If the ultimate goal is to convert piles of paper into legible PDF files for electronic archiving and future reference, you can get the job done with a relatively inexpensive all-in-one printer that can also scan documents. These multifunction printers usually cost around $100 to $150. But if you want a machine with more functions or features designed just for document scanning, or optical character recognition software that converts the printed image into text that can be edited, you usually pay more.
These all-in-one printers include software for scanning, and the software can have a setting for scanning documents as well as photos. Several Hewlett-Packard multifunction printers, for example, have a document-scanning option that saves the digitized results as PDF files, which take up considerably less cabinet space than a stack of clippings. Desktop programs like Evernote, which also has versions for several mobile platforms, organize digitized documents and can also be helpful for keeping track of the converted clippings.
If you prefer a more flexible option than buying a multifunction printer or portable scanner - and have a tablet or smartphone - most app stores have some sort of scanning app that uses the device's camera to capture an image of a document. Quality may vary, but you can find scanning apps for less than $10, including Scanner Pro for iOS devices, DocScanner for iOS and Android and Document Scanner for Android.
