title_body: How can I turn my hardcover book into a digital copy? I have several books that I love reading but because of my asthma I would need them in digital format. The paper back is too old and would affect me. I tried to find one of them in digital format but found the author has passed and there is no digital format in existence.
upvoted_answer: If you do not plan to distribute the copies, there is a better solution to just re-type everything - especially if there is more than 1 book.
  
  
  Scan book page by page.
  OCR the resulting images.
  Sister only makes correction where it is needed - or not at all, if mistakes can be "corrected" in the mind, while reading.
  
  
  Depending on the choices for step 2, you need to slightly adjust step 1.
  
  There are even solution for the smartphones - take picture with smartphone, get text. I did a lot of scans for personal purposes, but I do not have much experience with OCR. Try a search on the net for first steps to OCR.
  
  Discussion - Convert paper book to ebook
  
  OCR = Optical Character Recognition