Page scanning
How to Scan Underlined Book Pages
Scanning an underlined book page is less about taking a fast photograph and more about producing an image that can be checked. Good framing gives the text extractor a fair chance, while the review step protects the wording you actually meant to keep.
Prepare the page before you open the camera
Flatten the page as much as you can without forcing the binding. Move away from direct glare, turn on enough light to make the print clear, and remove objects that cast shadows across the text. If you have marked several separate areas, decide whether they belong together before capturing.
The app can help with a page image, but it cannot recover text hidden by a fold, reflection, finger, or heavy shadow.
Frame the page squarely
Hold the phone parallel to the page and keep all relevant lines inside the frame. Avoid an aggressive crop until you know which marked passages you want to review. Slightly wider context makes it easier to check where a passage starts and ends.
If the page is curved near the spine, move the phone rather than stretching the image in editing. A second clear capture is usually faster than correcting a distorted one.
Choose the extraction route deliberately
BookQuotes supports an on-device OCR path for local processing and a separate remote AI route for eligible signed-in subscribers who choose it. The app should make the current route visible while a page is being processed.
Remote processing is not a guarantee of perfect selection. It can be useful for marked-page analysis, but the image and result still need a reader review. When a network request fails, use the recovery choice or continue with the on-device route when appropriate.
Check selection boundaries, not just spelling
An extraction can contain correctly recognised words and still be the wrong quote. Check that it includes the full marked thought, excludes nearby unmarked text, and does not turn a margin line into a long selection. Then correct punctuation, hyphenation, and line breaks.
This review is part of the feature, not a failure of the workflow. The saved passage should represent what you selected on the physical page.
Questions readers ask
What makes a book page scan easier to extract?
Even light, a straight camera angle, visible print, and enough surrounding context. Glare, curved pages, and faint marks are the most common causes of a difficult result.
Can I scan several marked passages on one page?
Yes, but review each detected passage carefully. Separate marks may be returned as separate items, and a margin line may not indicate the exact boundary you intended.
Is on-device OCR the same as remote AI extraction?
No. They are separate processing routes. On-device OCR keeps processing local, while remote AI requires the relevant app flow, sign-in and network availability. Both routes still require review.