StickHead wrote:As for the work load, it really was labour intensive - I found the HTML portion of the task a breeze thanks to a free notepad software I used, where I could just highlight and click to apply tags and styles to sections of text.
Whats the quickest way to scan to PDF, thats without OCR. I am quite happy to scan some mags in myself, but not the OCR as it I simply dont have time.
Could do with a proggy or a method to scan multiple pages to a document and then export to PDF. What is the quickest method??
The real chore was the scanning, which was tedious, but required concentration to get it right. The OCR software was pretty accurate, but reading each page for errors was a necessity as there would be one or two errors (I think this is due to the typeface used in the mag). Text on pictured or darkish backgrounds would be garbled or not picked up at all, so I would type those out by hand.
Personally I think OCR is going to slow the job down. Its a great idea, but perhaps this can be done afterward?? Would it be better to get a team of people to say, scan in 5-10 magazines in each? Or even just one or two. Lets get a simple and quick method knocked on the head, with a simple method to compile to PDF.
ISSUU looks great. A very intuitive interface - I can imagine reading through some magazines using that. The problem is when uploading them to the internet, you are technically breaching copyright, so it would only be a matter of time before somebody took them down.
I just looked at Amiga Magazine Rack. I think that we can do better than this. Besides, if they can put up Amiga Magazines, then I dont see why Atari ones cant be put on the net. They are 20 years old!!
There are other services like ISSUU. But its easy, and takes 5 mins to convert a PDF to a flippable embeddable magazine. I would be quite happy to risk having a PDDF download, and an ISSUU flipper for example. Plus then a link to Coverdisk and Wonderdisk. Personally speaking OCR is not required for me, I would only need html if I wanted to cut and paste, and I cant see why I need that. If someone can find a better idea than ISSUU I would like to see it, but might be harder to set up.
I have seen a lot of books and manuals on ISSUU, and it looks like a good place to archive old books, manuals and magazines for the future.
I wonder if there is a javascript or similar version that you could install on one's own site and store the magazines locally? An ST equivalent of the Amiga Magazine Rack would be amazing.
Just store the PDF on site locally. Simple. We can do better than Amiga Magazine Rack. Its just a load of games reviews, and also I dont like the interface, just loading up single page scans. Ugly and unintuative.
Anther advantage of ISSUU is that the magazines can be posted, blogged etc etc.
We definitely need to collaborate on this. Somebody, somewhere probably has a sizable collection of scanned magazines already (I'm looking at you, Mug!
). I am personally reluctant to blindly scan my hundreds of magazines to later find that somebody has already gone to the trouble.
Here's an idea. Cut the spines of the ST Format magazines, and run them through a scanner with page feeder, like on one of those all in one printer/scanners. You know with auto page feed.
I still have no idea what wants scanning in??? Is there a list of what is done??? I think with a few people, we can collaborate on this. Its the only way to do it. I think a simple method to compile PDF from multi page scan needs posting and deciding on. I would certainly like to read through issues of ST Format that I dont own, and online is ideal. Lets do this!!
It would be awesome to incorporate your issues 1-4 content into the STF website - if you're genuinly happy for me to do this?, I'll make it happen and credit/link you on each article I use.
