Re: [Ql-Users] QL Today today
-Original Message- From: ql-users-boun...@lists.q-v-d.com [mailto:ql-users- boun...@lists.q-v-d.com] On Behalf Of Jochen Merz Sent: 12 October 2010 09:57 To: ql-us...@q-v-d.com Subject: Re: [Ql-Users] QL Today today Hi Adrian, interesting thought. However, I have no idea how to produce XML, I do not have a kindle or similar reader and I do not plan to buy one, as I still prefer paper (can be read while sitting in the sun, while taking a bath and so on). But I am not the readers of QL Today, and I probably agree without knowing how the distribution works: it is more likely to generate new subscribers this way. I believe it is unlikely for Calamus to provide a XML module, but in case the Bridge module produces the desired non-image PDF, there might be tools available for the PC which convert PDF to XML - I don't know. Something which needs to be discussed in the next issue of QL Today - at present I am very busy so I'll keep a bit quiet here. Kind regards Jochen Adrian Ives wrote: Perfectly readable and not so large that it's cumbersome (with today's broadband speeds). As an experiment I copied this to my Amazon Kindle. Although the latest Kindle has a passable PDF reader it's really not comfortable to read the pages as single graphics; a lot of zooming is required and it's difficult to pan and scroll across the image to follow the flow of the text. This is a Kindle limitation, though. On the PC, everything is fine. I've followed this debate for some time and would suggest that whilst Scanned to PDF is a good format for archival, for future distribution it's not ideal. I don't want to re-ignite the debate about getting output from Calamus, but I don't think the target should be PDF at all. It should be XML, for onward translation to other e-Publishing formats. Amazon offer a service (and the free software tools) where you can self-publish to their Kindles, for example. That route might offer a way of picking up entirely new subscriptions (from casual Kindle store browsers) and therefore some additional revenue. But, anyway, a nice conversion job and the perfect way to supplement the QL preservation project(s). It would be great to see a complete archive of all QL Todays available on DVD (for an appropriate fee, obviously). Adrian Urs wrote: Jochen allowed me to share a sample issue with you guys for further discussion. Here's issue 1 of volume 1 (May/June 1996): http://www.cowo.ch/downloads/1996-05_QLToday_V01I1.pdf; ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm If an alternative format is looked at, rather than XML I would recommend HTML as this is both more likely to be available as an output option and is relatively trivial to transform into any of the current electronic reading formats. Another format that is commonly available and is trivial to convert is RTF. Dave Walker Tel: +44 (0)1707 652791 Mob: +44 (0)7763 848186 Web: http://www.itimpi.com Skype: itimpi ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] QL Today today
On 11/10/10 16:04, Urs Koenig (QL) wrote: Jochen allowed me to share a sample issue with you guys for further discussion. Here's issue 1 of volume 1 (May/June 1996): http://www.cowo.ch/downloads/1996-05_QLToday_V01I1.pdf http://qdosmsq.dunbar-it.co.uk/downloads/QLToday.pdf The above pdf is a 1.1 Mb text based version of the first few articles in the one uploaded by Urs. All I did was downloaded the 50.5 MB file and using Okular, highlighted the text from the articles, copied to a file (it did a pretty nifty OCR on the fly!) and then inserted the text into Scribus. A quick and slight tarting up followed. Time taken - about an hour. And I've never used Scribus before! Most of which was defining text and paragraph formats. I'm just discovered Master Pages - which might make life easier! Enjoy. Cheers, Norman. -- Norman Dunbar Dunbar IT Consultants Ltd Registered address: Thorpe House 61 Richardshaw Lane Pudsey West Yorkshire United Kingdom LS28 7EL Company Number: 05132767 ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] QL Today today
Norman Dunbar wrote: A quick and slight tarting up followed. Time taken - about an hour. And I've never used Scribus before! Most of which was defining text and paragraph formats. A *real* good job! Thank's in advance! Cheers...Ralf ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] QL Today today
In message 4ca98e37.1050...@dunbar-it.co.uk, Norman Dunbar nor...@dunbar-it.co.uk writes Morning Malcolm, Isn't the Writer version, though, quite expensive? I presume so - it's a Windows commercial program after all. However, I create PDF files simply by using Open Office or my Docbook system. Neither of which use any form of Adobe supplied software. Docbook converts XML source code for a document into XSL Formatting Objects which is a horrendous language - that no-one ever writes directly - and form that, FOP (FO Processor) converts it to PDF. I have no idea how Open Office does it, it just does! All for free. In other words, not entirely without a cost. Only if you wish to use Adobe Writer to create your PDFs. There are many ways to skin a cat and even with Tony Tebby's rabid dislike of all things Unix, it works - for free! Cheers, Norman. Hi Norman, Umm ... interesting, I had never though of using Open Office for a PDF output. I will give a try. -- Malcolm Cadman ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] QL Today today
In message 134981f2a07640a9b8330e922b67f...@d3hkh9x94, Dilwyn Jones dil...@evans1511.fsnet.co.uk writes No need for fancy publishing software, and a PDF can be created by clicking one button. And the generated PDF is all of the above as well - searchable, cut paste etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Geoff and Jochen *must* create a PDF, I'm simply saying that it should be possible and the created files will not need to be bitmapped pages and extremely large with poor quality. Cheers, Norman. Hi Norman, As you say, that is what the PDF is designed to do, to make documents portable, and keep to a relatively small file size; whilst giving good quality. Isn't the Writer version, though, quite expensive? The Reader is supplied for free - just copy from a CD/DVD with supplied with a computer magazine, or download from the web. In other words, not entirely without a cost. -- Malcolm Cadman There are some free and low cost PDF writers out there. The simplest are basically printer drivers for Windows programs - select the PDF driver as the current printer driver and print to it. Usually, it will swallow the printed output then pop up to ask you to enter a filename. Never tried using these from QPC - I wonder if the current Windows printer driver was set to the PDF output one, and QPC was set to use the default Windows driver, would printed output from QPC in effect generate a PDF instead of a printout? Something for someone with the time to try I guess! I use the Nitro PDF program I got from Computeractive site IIRC, I have used packages like PDF995 and RoboPDF before today also. There are plenty of free PDF handlers, although some of them are free versions which while they will create PDFs, they might put a logo as a watermark or footer or something (remember how Line Design demo version did that?) Equally, Windows has a Generic/Text Only driver. Say you need to extract text from a PDF file or Word DOC file, select the Generic/Text Only driver (you may have to go through the Add Drivers dialogue as it is not installed by default) then just Print from Adobe Reader or Word or whatever, result is a quick text file without the fomatting. Handy when you need to transfer text to a QPC program, and when text only is good enough. Dilwyn Jones Hi Dilwyn, I have set up some of these free PDF printers, on a PC. Yet, then never really thought about using them ... :-( -- Malcolm Cadman ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] QL Today today
On 04/10/10 09:49, SMSQ - Jochen Merz wrote: Hello Bryan, may well be - but in order to use a DTP program properly, you need to learn a lot. It took me months to get used to all features I use in Calamus 20 years ago and I simply do not have the time to learn how to use a new, complex program. According to the Scribus WIKI, Calamus files can be read into Scribus. http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/File_formats_that_should_be_supported_by_Scribus_%28wish_list%29 So you should be able to continue creating QL Today in calamus and have **someone else** with the time and inclination, create a Scribus file from your calamus output. Wonder if it works? Cheers, Norman. ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] QL Today today
I wonder too if it works - and how - especially as the fonts I use are licensed to my Calamus serial number. If anyone wants to have a go - I am happy to provide a small CDK file containing only a few pages, to keep it small. Cheers Jochen Norman Dunbar wrote: On 04/10/10 09:49, SMSQ - Jochen Merz wrote: Hello Bryan, may well be - but in order to use a DTP program properly, you need to learn a lot. It took me months to get used to all features I use in Calamus 20 years ago and I simply do not have the time to learn how to use a new, complex program. According to the Scribus WIKI, Calamus files can be read into Scribus. http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/File_formats_that_should_be_supported_by_Scribus_%28wish_list%29 So you should be able to continue creating QL Today in calamus and have **someone else** with the time and inclination, create a Scribus file from your calamus output. Wonder if it works? Cheers, Norman. ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm -- Jochen Merz Software - Kaiser-Wilhelm-Str. 302 - D-47169 Duisburg Tel. +49-(0)203-502011 Fax +49-(0)203-502012 Email: s...@j-m-s.com Homepage: http://SMSQ.J-M-S.COM ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] QL Today today
Ah well, we tried. I mistakenly thought that Scribus could import Calamus document files, but it was actually Calamus Vector Graphics files. I have tried (you need Scribus 1.3.5 or greater) and although it does import these files, it doesn't display them in the document or the output pdf. This is a shame but it looks like Scribus is not going to help us out here. :-( Cheers, Norman. -- Norman Dunbar Dunbar IT Consultants Ltd Registered address: Thorpe House 61 Richardshaw Lane Pudsey West Yorkshire United Kingdom LS28 7EL Company Number: 05132767 ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] QL Today today
On 04/10/10 10:17, SMSQ - Jochen Merz wrote: I wonder too if it works - and how - especially as the fonts I use are licensed to my Calamus serial number. If anyone wants to have a go - I am happy to provide a small CDK file containing only a few pages, to keep it small. Yes please. I've just installed the latest Scribus on my laptop, so I'll happily try it out. Cheers, Norman. -- Norman Dunbar Dunbar IT Consultants Ltd Registered address: Thorpe House 61 Richardshaw Lane Pudsey West Yorkshire United Kingdom LS28 7EL Company Number: 05132767 ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] QL Today today
Afternoon Wolfgang, That should take all of 6 minutes: 1 minute : take the staples off put pages them in my scanner. 2 minutes scan even pages 2 minutes scan odd pages 1 minute prepare PDF... I could do that when QL Today gets here. I could do that as well with my scanner here, or even better, at work with the big one. However, that would build a PDF with bitmaps for pages - be they PNG or TIFF etc - and we want to avoid that. To me, a PDF file containing magazine text, or book text etc, should be: * Searchable - bitmap pages are not. * Copy paste'able. Again, bitmap pages are not. * Small! So, we only need the scanner to get the pages as images for an OCR to extract the text - I'm not sure how an OCR would treat the two column arrangement on some pages - and then use the text to build a new PDF file that is all of the above. As I mentioned, my 228 page pdf book is currently 890Kb in size, so a copy of QL Today with 40 pages could be somewhere around 160KB which is pretty good even if you are running an internet connection on a 56K modem! (I used to download the entire binary and source discs for C68 from Dave Walker when I was the Quanta C68 Librarian on a 1440 Modem. That was a task for Sunday afternoons when dial up was cheap rate!) I wonder if it's possible to get hold of the entire set of (possibly unedited) source files, in whatever format they come in, for one issue of QL Today just to see how much work is needed and how big the finished PDF will be. I have experimented with Open Office and it makes the use of mixed single and double column page formats - as in the latest QL Today - simple. Design the document on single page layout, select the text you want in two columns and Format-Columns and pick two, set the gutter size, OK. Job done! No need for fancy publishing software, and a PDF can be created by clicking one button. And the generated PDF is all of the above as well - searchable, cut paste etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Geoff and Jochen *must* create a PDF, I'm simply saying that it should be possible and the created files will not need to be bitmapped pages and extremely large with poor quality. Cheers, Norman. ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] QL Today today
No need for fancy publishing software, and a PDF can be created by clicking one button. And the generated PDF is all of the above as well - searchable, cut paste etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Geoff and Jochen *must* create a PDF, I'm simply saying that it should be possible and the created files will not need to be bitmapped pages and extremely large with poor quality. Cheers, Norman. Hi Norman, As you say, that is what the PDF is designed to do, to make documents portable, and keep to a relatively small file size; whilst giving good quality. Isn't the Writer version, though, quite expensive? The Reader is supplied for free - just copy from a CD/DVD with supplied with a computer magazine, or download from the web. In other words, not entirely without a cost. -- Malcolm Cadman There are some free and low cost PDF writers out there. The simplest are basically printer drivers for Windows programs - select the PDF driver as the current printer driver and print to it. Usually, it will swallow the printed output then pop up to ask you to enter a filename. Never tried using these from QPC - I wonder if the current Windows printer driver was set to the PDF output one, and QPC was set to use the default Windows driver, would printed output from QPC in effect generate a PDF instead of a printout? Something for someone with the time to try I guess! I use the Nitro PDF program I got from Computeractive site IIRC, I have used packages like PDF995 and RoboPDF before today also. There are plenty of free PDF handlers, although some of them are free versions which while they will create PDFs, they might put a logo as a watermark or footer or something (remember how Line Design demo version did that?) Equally, Windows has a Generic/Text Only driver. Say you need to extract text from a PDF file or Word DOC file, select the Generic/Text Only driver (you may have to go through the Add Drivers dialogue as it is not installed by default) then just Print from Adobe Reader or Word or whatever, result is a quick text file without the fomatting. Handy when you need to transfer text to a QPC program, and when text only is good enough. Dilwyn Jones ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] QL Today today
Dilwyn Jones wrote: Never tried using these from QPC - I wonder if the current Windows printer driver was set to the PDF output one, and QPC was set to use the default Windows driver, would printed output from QPC in effect generate a PDF instead of a printout? This works! I use this to generate PDFs from QPLQ and I use the freePDF printer driver for Windows. Cheers...Ralf ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] QL Today today
On 30 Sep 2010, at 17:04, Ian Pine wrote: I could buy a USB Floppy drive (if they are still made and are reasonably priced) for the PC but no guarantee it will read Q40 formatted disks. What about the CF reader/writer? If I got one and formatted a card with a SMSQ file system, is there any software for the PC that could extract the files from it? I frequently transfer information between the Q60 and QPC2 by means of floppies, either DD or HD. Only occasionally a file is unreadable by QPC2 having been written by the Q60 but this can happen between different readers whatever the computer and is no great problem. George ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] QL Today today
Evening all, QL Today arrived in miserable damp and grey Leeds today. I've read most of it already! On the subject of electronic vs. paper copy, electronic would certainly be convenient for archiving... Yes, I have a point on that very matter too. As you may well know, for a number of issues recently, I've been writing a series on Assembly language. What you might not know is that I'm working on a book where I've taken all the episodes and screen shots etc, and collected them into a book created in XML using Docbook and processed to give a reasonably nice PDF file. The book is configured as double sided, A4 sized pages, ready to print. Looking at it just now, it's 228 pages long - so 114 actual physical pages, assuming that there are no blanks - which there are. How big is the file, uncompressed I hear you wonder? 890KB. Less than 1MB in total. Now I realise that there are PDFs and there are PDFs and Geoff's comments about each page having to be a bitmap will indeed make the issues massive, but I'd be pretty sure that there's bound to be a way of getting actual text into the PDF. Some ways that I know of are OCR scanning the bitmaps to produce text - soemthing I'm having to look into for work at the moment. If I come up with something handy, I'll let you know. Another way is the fact that the files supplied to Geoff and Jochen (and Bruce?) and text based and could, most likely, be converted to Docbook XML format quite simply - at least, on Linux anyway. I'd be willing to have a go at doing an example QL Today in PDF format, just to see how it could be done and how big the resulting file would be. As they say on Top Gear how hard can it be? Just a thought. And, for those of us with a eReader that takes ePub files, guess what, Docbook XML source files can be output in ePub format too. That's another project I'm having to deal with at work. Wish me luck. Cheers, Norman. PS. Please excuse the following, it appears that by law, I must add it on to any communications going out from the company or from the company equipment. Guess which laptop I'm using to type this? -- Norman Dunbar Dunbar IT Consultants Ltd Registered address: Thorpe House 61 Richardshaw Lane Pudsey West Yorkshire United Kingdom LS28 7EL Company Number: 05132767 ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] QL Today today
Ian Pine wrote: Yes, it did exactly what it says on the cover and arrived (UK) Today! Looking forward to reading part 4 of 25 Years but haven't had the chance for anything more than a glance through yet. On the subject of electronic vs. paper copy, electronic would certainly be convenient for archiving - I don't have enough storage space to keep back issues of the paper version - but I'm more likely to read cover to cover a paper copy; if it were just available on a website I probably wouldn't get around to looking at every issue. Please keep the paper version for the time being! The Future (or, oh what is to become of my Q40?) My Q40 is still working perfectly reliably and I even get a decent enough image on an HP Pavilion f1523 LCD monitor if I shrink #0 to 4 text lines. In Mode 8 the image is very good (except circles are elliptical), but this is not the problem. The Q40 is now the only computer I have which has a floppy-disk drive; it is also the only computer I have with an RS232 style serial port and the only one with a parallel port. So while I still enjoy writing my own programs and trying out those in the magazine, all the effort typing it all in is going to be wasted if I can't get the stuff off for backup or transfer to an emulator when it eventually bites the dust. Is this the future of the Q40/Q60? I could buy a USB Floppy drive (if they are still made and are reasonably priced) for the PC but no guarantee it will read Q40 formatted disks. What about the CF reader/writer? If I got one and formatted a card with a SMSQ file system, is there any software for the PC that could extract the files from it? I did have something else to add to the future of QL debate but will have to leave it until later - got to go to work now :-( Ian. ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm Hi Ian, QPC2 with a USB floppy disk drive reads Q40/60 formatted floppy disks, or should I say SMSQ/E formatted floppy disks. The Q60 is still in demand, but I have no boards available at present. In fact I do not have a Q60 of my own. I do not want to get into the age old discussion of which is best, I have all QL hardware and software emulators. I mainly use QPC2 on Ubuntu Linux which is much more stable than Windows. Derek ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
