Converting Hand Written Diaries Into Digital Versions

[shivvy]

I wasn't very sure which category to put this question into, but here goes!

I have a number of old desk (ie A4) diaries which we used as a family when we were caring for our parents in their home. There are lots of memories in them - both happy and sad so I would like to be able to save them somehow. So I was wondering if there are companies who do such a thing ie scan the pages and then turn them into a digital version? I am sure companies must do it, but I just don't really know what it is I need to google? What is it called or what type of company would do it?
Thanks.

[barry1010]

I don't know of any company that offers such a service but if you have the time there are plenty of free apps you could try.

It would probably be easier and more accurate to use a typing service if you don't want to do it yourself. Of course the typing service can save the documents to pdf - it doesn't have be paper print

[shivvy]

Thanks barry.
The reason that I wanted them scanned is because my mum had written some things in the diaries and I wanted to capture her handwriting.

[dave50]

You could scan them yourself if you had a printer/scanner but it would be quite time consuming.

[bhg481]

Why not photograph every page? It's quicker than scanning although still very time-consuming.

[bednobs]

https://www.pearl-scan.co.uk/document-scanning-services/book-scanning/

[bednobs]

https://www.oxfordduplicationcentre.com/Diary-Book-Scanning-Service-Oxfordshire-UK.html
some idea of cost here.

[bednobs]

if you already have the equipment available it might be cheaper to employ a teenager for a couple of hours/days to do it in your home

[barry1010]

I misunderstood, I thought you wanted the handwriting converting to text.
As suggested, you could scan them yourself or take photos.

[ToraToraTora]

personally I'd just page through taking pictures of 2 pages at a time with my phone in landscape mode. Depending on what set up you have they should go to the cloud automatically. Take one first as a test to make sure it works ok and the definition is good enough then do a bit at a time. Take them in order then store in a folder and sort by data and they'll always be in the correct order.

[shivvy]

Thanks for your suggestions about me doing it with a phone/camera/scanner, but that isnt really an option.
Bednobs - thank you for those links, they were very useful and show how expensive it could be!
At least I now know that it is a known service so I'll start looking around locally and see if can get someone to do it.