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Hello Everyone.
You may have read on my posts a story about my time in San Diego.
I got started on my homepage at http://hometown.aol.com/sallykish/myhomepage/index.html.
On that homepage, I thought it would be nice to have the newpaper articles attached. So, I scanned them with upgraded Papermaster, then zipped them with Winzip, then FTP upload to AOL, then put address of FTP at favorite links entitled The First News Articles.
I tried downloading, but was not able to open file. I got messages saying something about no viewer being available.
Does helping me with this endeavor interest anyone? I have read so many times the instructions many of you have given others…
Is it okay that I ask for this?
Thanks.
Replies
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I may be off on this one, but are you writing that you uploaded a zipped file and never unzipped it?
If that's the case, it may not be "viewable" due to it still being zipped, unless AOL (I'm not familiar with them)has some provision for that (unzipping) on their end.
If you needed to zip it due to file size, that may not bode well for those with slow connections waiting for your bloated bytes to upload the article to their viewer.
You may have better luck scanning the newspaper articles, then drag them through an OCR (optical character reader?) It essentially turns your scanned article into an MSWord.doc (or equivalent). To regain the "flavor" of a newspaper article, you could then change font size and style, etc, to mimic the look of the original article. File size should then be a fraction of the original scanned-only article.
I hope this makes sense to you. At this hour, not much is making sense to me.
Good luck with your project Alan.
Follow up...I just went over to your site and read the quick and dirty...not good! Sounds like a tight situation you're in. Made it back here in time to add on to my first post.
I run IE5, I was able to get a "download" page to download your Articles. Mind you that the actual text did not appear, but instead a "save to disk" option. I saved to disk (floppy), but bailed out when I saw that it was well over 3MB in file size. Looks like the info is there, and viewable to those that will download the file directly to their hard drive (not me).
To me, it seems that the file is indeed there on the web, and it is accessible from the link. However, since you uploaded a file and not an HTML-type page, it isn't viewable as HTML...only as a downloadable file which can then be opened and viewed.
I'm no wiz with this stuff, so I may very well be wrong. Hopefully someone else can come along and offer better advice.
Once again, best of luck, not just with this problem, but with the entire situation.
*I suspect that the reason you got a "not readable" message is that you don't have any program on your computer associated with a zip file. That means when your browser tries to get your files off of AOL and sees the extention ".zip" it doesnt know what to do with it.On most browsers this will give you the "save to disk" screen that Mongo got. The reader then has to save it to disk, unzip it later, and read it in a separate program. That's okay if it is what you intended. If you wanted us to just read it without hassle it can't be a zip file.b update:I also just went to check out this link. It seems that the file has the extention ".document" on your web page. If it's a zipped file, I'd have to download it, change the name to a file with a ".zip" extention, unzip it, then read it. I only know to do this because you told me it's a zip file. I would have tried it but it was going to take an estimated 18 minutes to download (rural phone lines).Test sounds like the way to go. Then it could just be another page on your site and wouldn't require any switching between programs.Design your site for the stupid. There are alot of us out here.I had AOL a while ago and if you're using their browser, you can get different messages than the rest of us. AOL gives a dumbed down version of IE that can't be configured to handle all these little problems.It would be better to put a newspaper article up as a text file. Much smaller than making it a picture, especially one sharp enough to show the text. As far as the OCR software. Maybe Mongo's got some good software but the stuff I've got is about 95% accurate. That sounds good until you realize that it takes longer to fix 5% of a document with errors at random than it does to just retype it.Good luck.
*Hello Mongo and Ryan.Wow! You guys were up late. I did not think anyone would respond so quickly. I am grateful for your replies.(I just have to say: after my above post last night, I played Billionaire!, which is found at http://gameon.swede.com, and got the high score. Really, actually, a score beyond belief! It is now found at the Hall of Fame. Which just happened to be the exact way that I wanted to end a day filled with learning computer.)On the matter above, I like it that I have the zip file capability. I am wondering about how that relates, in the scheme of things. I learned to like it only after I found out that the upgraded Papermaster was not internet compatible, like the sales lady said.Lets look at my moves, maybe you will see where I strayed...First, I scanned the 39 pages. Each page has the clipping for the individual article.Second, I zipped it with the Winzip.Third, I got it into the Briefcase.Fourth, I emailed a copy to a friend who still has not responded. But, I got it into the internet.Fifth, I downloaded it from sent mail to see what my friend would be seeing.Sixth, I got kinda depressed because there was nothing to see on the downloaded email file.Seventh, somehow I got it into the FTP at aol.Eighth, I stumbled about between learning the aol html tutorial, and guessing at the address for the FTP at aol.Ninth, I made a good guess for the address of FTP and changed one of the links.Tenth, Billionaire! High Score! Did I mention that?So, I have a feeling that the original scanned documents took up way too much space. Am I correct? Do you have any suggestions about my steps?Is there a better way for me to make available these 39 pages?Anxiously awaiting...Thanks for your help.
*Alan,For the text to be readable to the average Joe with the average ISP, I'd load it as an HTML document. By doing this yourself, you could control how the pages and links look, and you could also break it down into segments so it loads in a reasonable time frame.This would require you to get the text into your document, either by scanning it through an OCR (with accuracy limitations, then manually correcting as Ryan wrote), by cut and paste, or by the dreaded hunt and peck.As far as I know, it's either build the pages yourself and upload them to your server, or use what you have now, which seems to be an uploaded file that each user will then have to download to his/her own hard drive, open, then read.Building simple HTML pages is quite easy. My daughter's Brownie Girl Scout Troop even made their own website, without any code-writing software. The "problem" will be getting all that text onto the pages.A scanned document, as you're aware, will be many times larger than a text document, affecting page loading. You can reduce the scanned item's resolution which can reduce file size, but clarity will be affected as well.I'm not aware of any program (without bringing in a third party) that allows you to upload a file and that then automatically converts that file into an HTML document. There may be one, but I'm unaware. That's how I see it. I'm sure there may be other options, I just don't know of them.
*Hi Mongo.Thanks for you help on this.I think that I will scrap this first attempt. I worked very hard to do it the wrong way.Your right about how easy it is to write in HTML. And the way the aol tutorial is set up, one can see immediate results with NOTEPAD. And there is lots more to read.Thanks for your help. I am very grateful for your most generous input.