On one hand there is the Chronicle project. On the other hand there is the Moxon project. On the third hand there is a box of Zomig for migraines. Sometimes I believe that Toby Hall has it right... we should return to letterpress printing. Gutenberg was no fool.
The Chronicle project is moving along. We have a team of 8 volunteers who happily assemble PDF files from the scanned images I provide. I get the PDF files back and process them through Acrobat for OCR, cropping and the like. I was working my way along when the new copy of Acrobat Pro 9 came out. Being the good little Adobe supporter that I am, I upgraded. Then I discover that there are all kind of little quirks that I need to learn about. No bugs really, just the new features, moved features, changes in workflow and so on that come with new software.
Back to square one with the post-scan, post-pdf workflow. Acrobat Pro, being an immensely powerful program, hides all kinds of goodies in it's crevices. Adobe, well on it's way to world domination of the digital document universe, has the typical corporate near-sightedness of failing to give all the information in a timely and clear manner. So I spent some days just working my way through the features to try and figure out how best, or not best, to use them for this project.
There is one new feature called ClearScan. It's a tidy bit of magic licensed, or purchased, or something by Adobe as a third option in OCR. Unlike the usual types of OCR, ClearScan does not create a hidden layer of bitmapped images (don't worry what that is, just imagine trying to read page 4 by looking through page 3 with your x-ray vision). ClearScan actually recreates the text in as close an appromixation as possible. You now have real text, not a bitmapped image of what the OCR engine thinks the text is. The result, tiny files, better contrast in text and usually, untouched graphics. The lack of that hidden layer dramatically reduces file size. A 10 Mb pdf becomes a 2 Mb pdf with full OCR. And this without any file size reduction commands. Reducing file size without messing up text contrast and image quality is the bane of document imaging. But no more.
So that headache was solved. I should say that ClearScan takes a looooooong time, so get it running and go out for a leisurely dinner or two.
Next comes Moxon. Yes, that Moxon, the one I've been hyping for nearly a year. I've tried Apple iWork Pages, Microsoft Word 2003 and 2007. Each in it's own way does ok, but has problems. Pages, which is a page layout program, really doesn't like to handle big documents or lots of graphics. So a book of nearly 350 Mb in size makes it choke. Word doesn't even choke, it just rolls over and dies. And getting Pages to handle the graphic images correctly is one large headache in the making. Supposedly, Pages is designed for graphics... but I now think it's fine for the average newsletter, brochure, meeting notice or even a text only book. But, and I do say BUT... the danged fool Quartz engine thing that drives Mac software is not appreciated by POD companies. By the time I get done with all the footwork necessary to prep a Pages file for POD requirements, nothing looked as it should. And Word? Well, Word does peculiar things to graphics, all of which should be outlawed in all 50 states.
Migraine time.
So I talked to my friendly desktop publishing expert, Patty MacLeish, editor and publisher of the journals of the Early American Industries Association and the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association, and said "HELP". After talking the problems over with her, I decided to order a copy of Adobe InDesign. I'm also considering hiring Patty to create templates for me to work from, to do the whole page layout job, or to tutor me in InDesign.
In the end, you have to use the right tools for the job.
Till next
Gary
