OWLscanoptical word & layout recognition
Book intake station · the night shift · est. 2026

A rare book goes in.
A clean text comes out.

Point a camera at a book you can’t buy as an ebook. OWLscan shoots every page by itself, and Archimedes reads it while you do something else. Bring Claude, and it comes out the other side transcribed and typeset.

Door one — free

Just scan

Your phone is the camera; turning pages is the only work. Motion detection shoots each page when it settles, and you leave with a clean, enhanced PDF.

  • 01Camera → PDF, free, no account needed
  • 02Reading (OCR) by the page, or free with your own Gemini key
  • 03Review page-by-page in the app, if you like
Door two — the novel bit

Bring Claude

The same app is also a plugin. Hand your library to a Claude session and it transcribes, fixes footnotes, and exports finished markdown — by conversation.

› What’s the reading status of The Supernatural Virtues?
› Read me page 12 and fix the footnotes.
› Export the book as clean markdown.
Connect Claude →

same machine, two doors — an app that is also a plugin

Step 1
Cradle the book

Any book cradle, any phone. Continuity Camera makes the iPhone a 4K scanner.

Step 2
Turn the pages

Motion auto-shoot captures each page as it settles. No pedal, no clicking.

Step 3
Walk out either door

Take the clean PDF, or let Claude carry it the rest of the way to a finished text.