Scansort

Scansort helps to collate and rename book scan images

Installation

pip install scansort

Synopsis

scansort [-h] [-v]
         -odd ODD -even EVEN [-missing MISSING]
         [-action {move,copy}] [-o OUTPUT] workdir

Desctiption

When using a book-edge scanner (such as Plustek OpticBook), it is handy to scan two sides of a book separately. This way you do not need to rotate the book to scan the next page. Scanned images from different sides normally make their way into separate directories.

Scansort helps one to collate these directories and rename images accodring to the actual page numbers.

The utility assumes that:

• The collection of images covers a monotonically increasing range of page numbers (with known missing numbers possible). This implies that front-, body-, and (possibly) back-matter must be scanned and processed separately.
• Even- and odd-numbered pages are put into separate directories.

Also, see an example of the indented workflow.

Options

workdir argument defines a working directory relative to which all other directory names and paths are interpreted. By default the current directory is used.

All page numbers must correspond to the actual "physical" page numbering in the book.

-odd, -even directory name/path
Source directories with scanned images of odd- and even-numbered pages.

-missing num[,num]*
Comma-separated list of page numbers missing in the source directories (either accidentally skipped during scanning or not present at all).

-action {move,copy}
Whether to preserve or delete the original images from the source directories. Defaults to copy.

-o directory name/path
Output directory for renamed scanned images. Defaults to out and will be created automatically if does not exist.

-h, --help
Show a help message and exit.

-v, --version
Show a version information and exit.

Example

After scanning a book I am normally left with something like this:

$ tree ./book
./book
├── lside
│   ├── scan0001.tiff
│   ├── scan0002.tiff
│     ...
└── rside
    ├── scan0001.tiff
    ├── scan0002.tiff
      ...

2 directories, 198 files

where rside contains even-numbered pages. Suppose I skimmed through the directories and realised I missed two pages: 2 and 6.

Then I run scansort to collate the directories:

$ scansort -odd lside -even rside -missing 2,6 ./book

The utility opens an editor to review the result:

# Please review the correspondence between files and book pages
'./book/lside/scan0001.tiff':   1
'./book/lside/scan0002.tiff':   3
'./book/rside/scan0001.tiff':   4
'./book/lside/scan0003.tiff':   5
'./book/lside/scan0004.tiff':   7
'./book/rside/scan0002.tiff':   8
...

I can edit the page numbers right away or remove all lines to cancel the operation (e.g. if it turns out there are more pages missing). Then I save and close the editor and the pages are collated:

$ tree ./book/out
./book/out
├── scan0001.tif
├── scan0003.tif
├── scan0004.tif
├── scan0005.tif
├── scan0007.tif
    ...
└── scan0200.tif

0 directories, 198 files

Note that the missing page number are omitted. I can then scan those separately and put in place.