I've had a request for an electronic copy of the Holmes Manuscript, which reminded me that I'd meant to release it (privately to interested parties, such as everyone here) after finishing the series. Billy Galaxy (owner of the actual document) said that was fine with him. I put it aside for two reasons:
(1) File size. Billy sent it to me as 138 jpg images, which I put together into a pdf. But it came out to be 175 MB. I seem to have later re-saved it at 37.8 MB (probably using my mac). But I'm still not sure if that's optimal.
(2) Page 67 is missing from the final draft of the manuscript. I now have a copy of the missing material from an earlier draft, and I've made a nice re-creation of the missing page as a one-page pdf. I need to insert this page into the pdf. I used to have a pdf editor but I think I deleted it at some point.
I thought I'd check with the group here and see if anyone here has more experience with optimizing/editing pdfs?
Zach: I have Acrobat Pro DC version 2015.006.30201. I'd be happy to help with PDFing if you need assistance.
ReplyDeleteGreat! I'll send you an email.
ReplyDeleteI have Acrobat but I see Allan got in first! :-P
ReplyDeleteBeat me to it, Allan Grohe! I don't have Acrobat Pro but I have Paperport Pro, which came with a scanner I bought long ago. It imports almost any kind of document and let's you break apart and reassemble docs.
ReplyDeleteAnother option for retaining quality would be to archive using WinRAR and providing it as a re-assemblable set of smaller *rar files
ReplyDeleteOooooh!
ReplyDeleteHmm. That's also a good idea Bryan Manahan
ReplyDeleteMore info: The original scans are 138 jpgs, numbered sequentially in reverse order. Each is 8.5 x 11, 300 pixels/inch, 0.5 - 1.7 MB each, more on the higher side of that number.
ReplyDeleteOn a Mac, I can highlight all the jpgs, open in Preview, and then print straight to pdf, which gives me a pdf of 175 MB with the re-created page inserted (I converted the pdf i made into a jpg and put it in the right place).
ReplyDeleteThe 175 MB pdf will preserve the original scan quality, which gives a decent print-out. I'm waiting to see if Allan can reduce this size without sacrificing quality.
ReplyDeleteI found I can use Preview to reduce the file size to 37.6 MB by putting it through a Quartz Filter (B&W). This removes some of scanning artifacts from the white background and reduces the font quality a bit, but not much.
ReplyDelete38MB for a pdf of that many pages doesn't sound outrageous in the least.
ReplyDeleteOh, and — want!
ReplyDeleteJon Wilson Yes, true. I'll see what Allan comes up with for comparison. I'll also do a print comparison of the two I have now, and see how they look.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, after making the recreated page 67 I'm really digging Courier font. It matches so nicely with the font of Holmes' typewriter (as it should).
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I'd love a pdf or print version of the Holmes manuscript with all of your annotations, footnotes, and observations — but that may be a project for another time (soon? tomorrow?).
ReplyDeleteI do intend to re-format the blog post series as a document. Low priority right now since the material is available on the web. But I wouldn't include the entirety of the text as Wizards owns the copyright; the majority of the text is the same as the published version. I'd just include fair-use quotations illustrating the changes.
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