September 2009 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Re: Line Art
by Norbert Langkau 13 Sep '09

13 Sep '09

Hi James, please have a look at this book: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/23787 The "base drectory" directs you to http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23787/ where you find http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23787/23787-page-images/ These are 300 dpi, as far as I recall, but I could provide some 600 dpi's if need be. I'm very curious on how the outcome will look like. Best regards - Norbert > -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- > Von: "James Cloos" <cloos(a)jhcloos.com> > Gesendet: 13.09.09 17:56:42 > An: gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > Betreff: [gutvol-d] Line Art > I see that the HTML versions of a number of PG works include images > of art from the original books. > > Are higher-resolution scans of those images available anywhere? > > I'd like to experiment with automated vectorization of scans of line > art, and providing SVG format vector files of the line art back to PG > would make the effort doubly useful. (Encapsulated PS and PDF files > also could be made available, if desired.) > > -JimC > -- > James Cloos <cloos(a)jhcloos.com> OpenPGP: 1024D/ED7DAEA6 > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d > ______________________________________________________ GRATIS für alle WEB.DE-Nutzer: Die maxdome Movie-FLAT! Jetzt freischalten unter http://movieflat.web.de

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Re: In search of a more-vanilla vanilla TXT
by Greg M. Johnson 13 Sep '09

13 Sep '09

Marcello wrote: >The problem is to decide which LF to retain. So you have to go to a program like Word, turn all instances of "^p^p" to "QQQQ", then delete "^p", then turn "QQQQ" back to "^p^p". This happened to work for me fairly well just now with "Ten Nights in a Bar Room". The novel itself looked okay but the license at the end had some spacing irregularites to it. However: i) There will be cases where folks are software limited. I cannot see anyone being able to do this on the Ipod Touch. I've tried to look at 80-TXT files a couple times from an Apple store in cases where there was no HTML version. This may be a silly example, but I think it's about making an impression on such cursory visitors to PG. ii) There will be cases where folks are skills limited. Would the stereotypical impoverished child in Honduras be able to do that? iii) What about Shakespeare? Michael wrote: > Trouble reading on a 12" screen? Yes. Why anyone ever came up with a 7.5 x 12.5 inch screen is beyond me, but you sort of have to choose a small pixel size to get some things in your workflow vertically all on the same page. And there are font sizes that are fine for reading things you never really need to **read**, like "File Edit View," and then there are font sizes which you'd want if you're forcing your eyes to actually read a whole book. Notepad might be fine for a short shopping list or work to-do list but not for an entire novel in monospace. Hence also wanting to redirect the viewing experience into an HTML browser with Ctrl + font-size-changing capability. (Edit: I just learned just now that Notepad has an option for changing font face!) Okay, I'll stop stirring the pot (if yall'd prefer I do), but here are two last ideas on this topic: i) If you are producing a book, *please* consider making an HTML version to be as important as the 80-TXT one, certainly more important than PDF, PUB, and MOBI. In my mind, the ones without HTML (and put the entire legalese at the front of the doc) are in some sense "lost to history" because they aren't nearly as readable. ii) Rather than curse the darkness, someone should light a candle. My response to my allegation of 80-TXT readability was to compile a DVD of 3850 books-- hopefully more books than any reasonable person would ever want to read in a lifetime-- all in ****unzipped**** HTML format-- structured with HTML which operates as I imagine the ideal book reading hand-held device ought (if I were ever to see one in operation). I've sent a workable draft to Michael; I'm now looking at squeezing in a mite more books and maybe setting up editor's picks. -- Greg M. Johnson http://pterandon.blogspot.com

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one more reminder about those .txt files
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 12 Sep '09

12 Sep '09

one more reminder that the iphone app "eucalyptus" creates beautiful books by using the .txt files from p.g. all you yahoos who continue to say that it can't be done have been proven wrong by a person who went and did it. -bowerbird p.s. the programmer has even done a pretty good job of detecting the places where lines should not be rewrapped, like in tables, address blocks, signature blocks, and so on.

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Re: TXT and all that.
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 12 Sep '09

12 Sep '09

oh geez, how could marcello make it any more clear that he doesn't know jack shit about distributed proofreaders? *** jon said: > In Word, format the whole caboodle fairly nicely, illustrations > and all. Use all the nice features, including programmability, for > editing etc. BB doesn't like the result of course, and i can see why hey, wait, don't put words into my mouth, jon. lots of times i would like a .doc file very much. it'd be much more useful than an .html file or a butchered .txt version, that's for sure... > Nice chapter headings, page numbering etc. Also tables of contents, > whatever is free or nearly. It helps with the editing anyway, so why not? indeed. but then, of course, if you used one of my editing tools instead, you'd find that you get all of those things "free" with it, as well... > So I do a conversion to "filtered" HTML. Hard work that. > Takes dozens of keystrokes. Well, more than a dozen anyway. the conversion from .zml to .html takes just one button-click. > Ahaaah! Gotcha! PG doesn't like Word HTM either! the .html from the .zml conversion is just fine, according to p.g. > HTMLKit convert a Word file so easily to clean HTML that > I don't bother to keep backups except of the DOC. sounds good. except, of course, that your .html files differ in their makeup from other post-processor's .html files, so -- down the line -- it will be absolutely impossible for someone to understand the various ripples underlying all of your different .html variants, which means they won't be able to _maintain_ those .html files. so instead, the person(s) maintaining the library will turn to the .txt versions, and do the little bit of work necessary so that those .txt versions can serve as the master from which .html is created. which is what you should have done in the first place... this all means you've all basically created something temporary, instead of something that is able to be maintained a long time... > I realise that BB and a few others have better ways of doing it, > but every time I get tempted to sniff down those alleys, I go > and lie down for six seconds till the feeling passes. i do have a better way. but if you want to keep doing it in your clumsy way, it's ok. that's the way most people do most things, and the world didn't fall apart because of it. (the world fell apart because of greedy bankers.) just so long as you realize that your work on the .html files will be thrown out down the line, and you are ok with that, everything's fine. thanks for your generosity in volunteering your time and energy to the cause of digitizing books. -bowerbird

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TXT and all that.
by Jon Richfield 12 Sep '09

12 Sep '09

Folks, I actually am up to the back teeth with the about it and abouting. A lot of intelligent people (sincerely meant, no sarcasm) saying mainly intelligent things about material problems and objectives and yet... SO I was going to shut up. ME!!! I'll try to make up for it by being short and to beside the point. As a long-time hands-on, low-level, DP support and development man, I understand the importance of TXT files. Really I do. Anyway, as a reader with a PC, I can represent the TXT files fairly comfortably, even for reading big books, where Dick and Jane meet in Whore and Piece. As a user of PCs that are mere years old, I understand the importance of more convenient formats. Trust me, I do. As either I shall not argue the point. If you seek the reason why, circumspice! Now, I am no major contributor to PG, but I have contributed some quick-and-dirty digitisations, using modest facilities. I use M$oft under protest, because nowadays as a user (read: bottom-feeder!) I don't have the time to learn decent stuff and instead I put up with all the triviality and inelegance. Upshot: * Scan the book (Actually, nowadays my scanner lies idle. Mainly I use my digital camera: faster, often better, far more flexible, more portable; (I can use it in libraries etc) and less harmful to the books too. That is nice!) * After having for some years used the perfectly useful crippleware version that came in the cereal box with my scanner I bought a decent omniscan on a $100 on-line special. That too is nice. *Feed the output into Word. (I actually have certain reservations about this, but note that Word has certain useful aspects: It deals fairly nicely with TXT AND with HTM. And it is programmable. I don't have to work with Courier or FTM Arial all the time.Useful font, but neither restful, nor comfortable for speed reading.) In fact, though I have not yet done anything with it, I am fairly sure that I have enough facilities at hand to produce PDF as well if I choose. But here the same prejudice that makes me appreciate TXT kicks in: If I lose my software or get stuck with moderately damaged files, I can easily edit HTM to make it readable, but I'll be blowed if I bother to learn more opaque formats. To be sure, the PG TXT format is, whatever its merits, not nice, but if that is what they want... *In Word, format the whole caboodle fairly nicely, illustrations and all. Use all the nice features, including programmability, for editing etc. BB doesn't like the result of course, and i can see why, but I have only one life, and not much more of that, so...Nice chapter headings, page numbering etc. Also tables of contents, whatever is free or nearly. It helps with the editing anyway, so why not? *What? PG doesn't like DOC? Tsk Tsk! So I do a conversion to "filtered" HTML. Hard work that. Takes dozens of keystrokes. Well, more than a dozen anyway. *Ahaaah! Gotcha! PG doesn't like Word HTM either! How do you like that my buck??? Big deal! Someone steered me in the direction of HTMLKit! Now THERE is a useful product. May the commercial users make the company stinking rich! They deserve it big time. HTMLKit convert a Word file so easily to clean HTML that I don't bother to keep backups except of the DOC. There I have a working HTML with figures, tables, the full catastrophe. *But what about TXT? Here is where word comes in useful. again. I steadfastly resist any hyphenation except where words are too long for the line, or where a word is hyphenated. This, apart from other virtues, make it trivial to break lines with the help of a macro or two. (Actually, I have used other convenient TXT processors to break lines, but that is a matter of ad hoc convenience). *Then there are the GUTCHKs and so on, bless their writers' hearts. Actually I use them before the HTML production to trap errors that slip through other processors. By the time I have done with the HTML, I usually have finished with the TXT as well. Pictures? No problem. If anyone wants them they can get them from the HTM version. *Seems a long way round? Maybe. But I already had most of the tools for other purposes, and knew how to use them. Apart from the necessary basic effort all it takes is largely automated document production and conversion. Two steps for two files when you come down to it. *I realise that BB and a few others have better ways of doing it, but every time I get tempted to sniff down those alleys, I go and lie down for six seconds till the feeling passes. I'll re-evaluate new options as soon as everyone else agrees on all of them. By that time books and computers both will be passe. Cheers, Jon

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Re: why the plain-text format is the most useful format for eliciting beauty (and more)
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 12 Sep '09

12 Sep '09

jim said: > What I don’t understand is why PG continues to be > wedded to plain-text as an *input* encoding format > demanded of people submitting texts to PG. well, if you _honestly_ "don't understand" the reason, jim, then i must say that you certainly aren't trying very hard... the plain-text format is the most valuable to people because it is the most pliable when it comes to reworking the content. > Plain-text is too constrained to do the job well. first you want to constrain the format to an archaic definition... then you want to complain about it because it's too constrained. that's disingenuous. > HTML is too ambiguous, and too ill-matched to books to do well. no, that's not the problem -- .html can do a fine job on books, for the most part, but the problem is that's it's a pain to create. > We need something else, something that CAN be correctly > and automagically converted “correctly” to one or another formats > including plain-text, and Unicode, and HTML, and mobi, etc. that "something else" is z.m.l. > And something that allows the simple every day tasks > of the encoder, including italics and m-dash and poetry, > titles and chapters and subchapters, publisher info, dates, etc > to be handled correctly and easily. again, you're talking about z.m.l. but, you know, you can invent your own equivalent, if you like... > PS: Bit curious which blind reader handles > _the underscore “convention”_ correctly – > I’ve not seen _that_ one! i'll let tony answer that question. -bowerbird

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Re: In search of a more-vanilla vanilla TXT
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 12 Sep '09

12 Sep '09

greg said: > Or what is the most primitive device in use today the web-browser. a web-browser won't wrap the lines on a .txt file, so if the hard-returns were removed from p.g. .txt files, the lines would run off the screen of a web-browser. try it if you don't believe me. *** it's absolutely true that project gutenberg should have given users a tool that would remove the hard returns, and it should've done that years ago, but it's also true that the .txt files _should_ have hard-returns in them. now, i'd suggest that those hard-returns should mimic the ones found in the print-books against which the text was proofed, but that won't help the books already done. -bowerbird

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Re: In search of a more-vanilla vanilla TXT
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 11 Sep '09

11 Sep '09

i said: > it's absolutely true that project gutenberg should have > given users a tool that would remove the hard returns, > and it should've done that years ago michael said: > We did do that years ago, and years before that. oh really? and just exactly where is that tool? -bowerbird

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Re: why the plain-text format is the most useful format for eliciting beauty (and more)
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 11 Sep '09

11 Sep '09

jim said: > I don’t see how one “elicits beauty” from something that isn’t there. > Plain text doesn’t have enough power to encode even > simple mainstream texts, which frequently include > the use of italic, for example. italics are indicated by surrounding _underscores_... > Yes, one can fake it, but then its not plain text anymore. you have an archaic and incorrect notion of "plain text"... > If we had an unambiguous encoding which captures authors intent, > then it would be easy to go the other direction and “throw away” > author’s intent when it doesn’t fit into plain jane text mode. why would you want to "throw away" the author's intent? -bowerbird

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Re: In search of a more-vanilla vanilla TXT
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 11 Sep '09

11 Sep '09

i said: > a web-browser won't wrap the lines on a .txt file, so > if the hard-returns were removed from p.g. .txt files, > the lines would run off the screen of a web-browser. i'm sorry. i was wrong. safari (at least) does wrap the lines. i'm not sure where i got that idea... at any rate, my apologies for the misinformation. -bowerbird

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