What are some good workflow to collect quotes from physical books to iOS? I’m not referring to academic work, more to a normal reader that want to bring good quotes to some form of “database”.
I’ve seen discussions about the best software to collect quotes in iOS, but haven’t seen anything on the process on how to collect from a physical book. Any suggestions other than to use your fingers on the keyboard???
Our local library is quite well equipped and I regularly get books from there. I am using this for physical books, but it is a bit tedious, if it doesn’t recognize the characters correctly, but it works and organizes quotes nicely in stacks for each book.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/key-passages-study-assistant/id1442938779 
I use DEVONthink to collect quotes. If they’re short, I just add them to a new note. If they’re longer I use Fine Scanner, which has excellent OCR, then import the scanned page into DEVONthink as a PDF, and highlight the section of text. I normally just have a folder in DT for each book, all stored in a dedicated Research database, and a note with an index of the quotes.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Yes, I was looking for something along that way. Not necessarily an app to collect it all.
Downloaded the app, but it simply did not do the job. Could not move the rectangle more than a mm, it just marked a bit of the screen - and, it took 7 seconds to open the camera to scan a page (iPhone 11). I suppose often reading Swedish books doesn’t make it easier.
I’ve fiddled with scanner pro, but not succeeded to get that to work satisfactory.
If I were going to do it that way I’d either dictate the quotations into Drafts or scan the page with Scanner Pro, which has OCR. (I’m sure there are other scanning apps that have OCR. That’s just the one I use.) Then I’d set up some kind of workflow to collect the quotations into DEVONthink.
I just downloaded this app to check it out. the iTunes Store says it has IAPs but doesn’t list them, and after downloading the app there is a Subscriptions section with options for ‘unlimited books’ as well as ‘credit-packs’ to to cloud-based OCR… but both those options are greyed-out and unavailable. Any idea what’s up there?
That’s my plan too, to Devonthink or Ulysses, but the OCR-ing is a little problematic for me now. Maybe I haven’t tried enough.
dictation in Swedish is not problem free 
I think this started off as a personal project by the dev.
I am not sure what underlying technology he was using to do the OCR, but it is far from being flawless. If the pages are not perfectly flat, the lighting conditions are sub-optimal, there are pencil annotations or highlights made or fonts change or graphical elements are used the textual result can be off.
The app used to be paid first, if I recall correctly and he switched to Free + IAP. But as far as I’m aware he wanted to switch to a credit based system and use a cloud-service to do the OCR.
The problem with that credit system probably was that you still get charged, when something outside of the app’s control, went wrong. Like you book page turned unexpectedly or your lighting changed or your camera took too long to focus and the image is blurry. And then you have to deal with “angry support requests” all the time. I think he ditched the cloud OCR again and simply didn’t have the time to properly remove it from the app.
No guarantee that this was the reason, but that is my suspicion.
I mirror the quotes to DayOne, once I’m done reading a book, so that I not fully rely on the app for long term storage. You never know…
I use the iOS version of Prizmo - the OCR is fantastic. I capture it then export it to Apple Notes then format it later in a word processor. Simple and always on hand!
This seem to exactly what I’m after!! Just one more service to subscribe to…
Thanks a lot!
(PS Is it M Luther on your picture?)
I have heard of an app called Excerpt that maybe exactly what you are looking for.
An alternative, which forces you to add a book and an author before taking a photo. My first try worked with Swedish text - rather ok.
Already two alternatives!
MPU folks - you are great!!!
Check out Readwise.io they have an iOS app In development that I think would accomplish your goal.
Thanks all!
I’ve got some excellent suggestions. I’ll try them out!
I only use the iOS version and paid AUD$8 for it with no subscription. The Mac version is in SetApp but I don’t used it very often.
The bonus with the iOS version is that if I’m watching a Keynote/Powerpoint presentation, I can often take a photo of the material on the screen and Prizmo will convert it to text — and so I don’t have to worry about scrambling to take down notes. It’s a fantastic app!
Yep that’s Martin alright! I’m a Presbyterian Church of Australia pastor.
I have a long list of quotes in a note. Is it possible to upload these quotes to ReadWise and then have ReadWise suggest and resurface them individually from time to time in an email or a notification?
How does one best go about importing a long list of quotes from a note in Apple Notes and into Readwise?
I use Scanner Pro from Readdle. Its free and the OCR is really good.