On 18-Feb-2010 13:47, Bowerbird@aol.com wrote:
actually, i don't think i've ever compared my stuff with any other software directly, because any tool
Perhaps not, but over time you have described checks that your tools can do and fixes that you can automatically make that sound a little to me like a super-duper gutcheck. Also the workflow I picture is a little like gutcheck -- I am thinking of text-in text-out command line tools, not something that needs to look at image scans or makes me talk to it in a fancy U/I. This is perhaps an inaccurate impression I have. If the comparison is totally inappropriate, I'm sorry.
you'll also need to tell me what version you want -- mac or p.c. or linux. your signature-block screams out linux,
Probably something that would run in FreeBSD would be most useful -- a Linux build would, I think. Windows would be fine too.
finally, please give a short description -- frontchannel -- of your _current_ workflow. how do you do your books?
This is still fairly accurate: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Volunteers%27_Voices#Gardner_Buchana... ...although I have a nicer flatbed scanner now. I used to always page-by-page scan, OCR and first-proof books that I was doing from physical copies. The last couple of books I've done instead by scanning, bulk OCR and then proof from the scans and raw OCR text, which I can do on the road with my laptop or anywhere I can mount a USB key for a couple of hours. After OCR I have a few basic things that I do via regular expressions in vi: I find and fix spaced punctuation, find and fix M-dashes. If there's any obvious consistent scannos -- the Heavysege item I just finished had Ys that looked to Finereader more like Vs, for example -- I will have a crack at finding those. I have been known to write a one-off perl script to get at something that bugs me enough. The thing is that I do not have a specific set of checks and fixes that I consistently do. I rely a lot on jeebies and gutcheck. I would like something perhaps with a wider range of things that it can find so I don't have to know all the things to look for. Over the years you have mentioned several automated checks and fixes that sounded sensible enough to me. I'm not keen enough to go back through the archives, find them and implement them -- but I am nevertheless interested in trying a tool like this out on a project to see if it adds value for what I do. Heck, you can grab http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/2/1/31212/31212-8.txt and just tell me what you find. I have no doubt there is lots to find. ============================================================ Gardner Buchanan <gbuchana@teksavvy.com> Ottawa, ON FreeBSD: Where you want to go. Today.