Heh you've got more than your work cut out scanning that series.
Even the computer threw up over some of those names trying to
read them.
----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas Ward <[email protected]
To: Gamers Discussion list <[email protected]
Date sent: Fri, 15 Jun 2012 19:22:06 -0400
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Redistributing RPG Source Books
Hi Paul,
I've already checked. While there are scanned copies of the
sourcebooks out there on The Pirate Bay and other torrent sites
they
aren't at all screen reader accessible. What I mean by that is a
lot
of people just scan the sourcebooks, save the individual pages as
jpg
images, and then create a pdf document of all the pictures. So
what we
end up with when downloading these sourcebooks in pdf format is
three
to four hundred pictures of the pages but nothing the screen
readers
can read. It is just all one big graphic as far as Jaws,
Window-Eyes,
NVDA, etc is concerned.
Of course, I do understand the reasoning behind why the people
are
scanning the pages as images and saving them as a pdf document
rather
than converting them to text using an OCR program like Omnipage.
The
books are full of pictures of the various aliens, ships, weapons,
droids, etc. If someone were to scan the book using Omnipage it
would
take a picture of the page, remove any images from the page, and
convert the printed words to ascii text. Therefore all the images
and
artwork in the books would be gone. Most sighted people wouldn't
want
that so they just take a picture of the page as it doesn't
prevent
them from reading it, but is totally inaccessible to us.
So in the end I'm right back where I started. I have to scan the
books
in Openbook, spell check the documents, and save them in a format
like
text. Then, if I want the formatting etc back use html to
reformat
everything so it is both screen reader readable and more or less
has
the same formatting as the print copy. Easier said than done
though.
I've scanned several pages of the New Jedi Order Sourcebook today
and
Openbook consistently made stupid mistakes. For example, instead
of
Yuuzhan Vong it would put something in like Yang which isn't even
close to the correct spelling or name of that alien race. I am
suspecting Openbook is trying to convert it into English, uses
some
type of error checking, and since Yuuzhan Vong isn't in its
vocabulary
it tries to guess using some other word like Yang which makes
sense to
it.
One reason I think that is because in the New Jedi Order series
there
is a female scientist named Danni Quee. Well when scanning the
sourcebook I've seen Openbook scan her name as Dan Queen twice.
Again
that's totally wrong, not even close,and of course Freedom
Scientific's stupid spell checker doesn't get the mistake either.
I've
only found those kinds of errors by editing the pages manually
and
using my own knolege of the Star Wars universe to fix and correct
mistakes that Openbook made.
Cheers!
On 6/15/12, Paul Lemm <[email protected]> wrote:
I don't really know much about these source books you are
talking about,
but
I would imagine there must be tons out there and surely someone
has already
scanned these onto a computer. I know a lot of people will
disagree with
torrent (peer to peer) sharing sites but is it worth taking a
look through
Google to see if these are already out there. I disagree with
outright
piracy but if you already own the original anyway then your
just using
the
site to get a back up version so doing nothing wrong (at least
that's how I
thought it works and the way these sites get round breaking
any laws and
aren't shut down straight away) like dark I live in the UK and
have had
difficulties getting certain audio books and although the RNIB
does have a
big selection there are still a lot of books they either don't
have or
don't have the complete series off. I have some hard back books
from when I
could see and couldn't get the audio version in the auk so since
I owned
the
original and can't get an audio copy I've downloaded it but like
I said
since I own the original in my opinion don't think I'm doing
anything wrong
(others might disagree) but I've brought the product and just
want to read
and enjoy it again. And don't think I shouldn't be able to just
because its
not accessable in this country.
---
Gamers mailing list __ [email protected]
If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to
[email protected].
You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org.
All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected].
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of
the list,
please send E-mail to [email protected].
---
Gamers mailing list __ [email protected]
If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected].
You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org.
All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected].
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list,
please send E-mail to [email protected].
