is the instruction to start a new paragraph. An _entity_ is a named special character that might not be available in your character set. Entities are shown starting with an ampersand "&" and ending with a semi-colon ";" : for example, — is the representation of an em-dash. I'm marking up a made-up short text as I write these steps, loosely based on the sample page from question [V.121]. You can see the changes made at each stage by looking at the files htmstep0.txt (text before starting) htmstep1.htm (after adding the HTML header and footer) htmstep2.htm (after adding paragraph marks) htmstep3.htm (after marking main headings) htmstep4.htm (after adding special line breaks and indents) htmstep5.htm (after adding italics and bold) htmstep6.htm (after adding accents and non-ASCII characters) htmstep7.htm (after adding an image) htmstep8.htm (showing some extra techniques) Before you start, make sure that you can see these files both in your browser and in your editor. In your editor, you should see the HTML codes; in your browser, you should see the text as it is intended to be viewed. Note for people who already know HTML: yes, this example omits lots of possible ways to do things, and lots of refinements. You already know how to do what you want to do--skip onwards, and give the beginners room to learn in peace! :-) Step 1. Add the HTML header and footer information Add the following lines at the top of your text file:
at the start, and
at the end. You don't actually need the at the end, but adding these is a good habit to get into. You do, very much, need theat the start. The line-lengths within a
pair are irrelevant; the browser in which the text is viewed will ignore extra spaces and line-ends, and will wrap text to fit the screen. This is bad for poetry and tables, but we will discuss those later. For this step, all you need to know is that you can leave your text exactly as it is, and just add the paragraph marks. Put a
at the start of the line before the first letter of every paragraph, and a
just after the last letter or punctuation of every paragraph. If you can do macros in your editor, this will just take a minute; otherwise, it may be rather boring, but at least it is simple. For this step, put the paragraph marks around _everything_ that has a blank line after it, even poetry or chapter titles. We'll come back and change that later. Now save your text as something like MYFILE2.HTM or STEP2.HTM. Again, run Tidy to check for errors, and fix them before continuing. If you now look at the file htmstep2.htm in your browser, you will see that it is starting to take shape. Look at it in your editor, and you will see the paragraph marks. Step 3. Add marks for headings. We want to indicate to the reader that certain lines are for chapter or other headings. HTML provides the tags, , and so on for
this. is for the biggest heading, and usually, you will reserve
this for the title, and use for chapter headings. If you find
these too big, you could choose for main headings, and
for chapters. Whenever you use one of these header tags, you must
close it with its equivalent end tag. So a chapter heading might
look like:
Chapter XI
Since there won't be many headers, and most headers are only on one
line, this is usually not hard. Look at the file htmstep3.htm to
see how our sample is improving, and if you're working along with
me, don't forget to save your file under a new name and check it.
In our example, we have marked some lines with paragraph marks
where we now want to put headings, so we will change those
is for the biggest heading, and usually, you will reserve
this for the title, and use for chapter headings. If you find
these too big, you could choose for main headings, and
for chapters. Whenever you use one of these header tags, you must
close it with its equivalent end tag. So a chapter heading might
look like:
Chapter XI
Since there won't be many headers, and most headers are only on one
line, this is usually not hard. Look at the file htmstep3.htm to
see how our sample is improving, and if you're working along with
me, don't forget to save your file under a new name and check it.
In our example, we have marked some lines with paragraph marks
where we now want to put headings, so we will change those
for main headings, and
for chapters. Whenever you use one of these header tags, you must
close it with its equivalent end tag. So a chapter heading might
look like:
Chapter XI
Since there won't be many headers, and most headers are only on one
line, this is usually not hard. Look at the file htmstep3.htm to
see how our sample is improving, and if you're working along with
me, don't forget to save your file under a new name and check it.
In our example, we have marked some lines with paragraph marks
where we now want to put headings, so we will change those
Chapter XI
Since there won't be many headers, and most headers are only on one line, this is usually not hard. Look at the file htmstep3.htm to see how our sample is improving, and if you're working along with me, don't forget to save your file under a new name and check it. In our example, we have marked some lines with paragraph marks where we now want to put headings, so we will change thoses into
s, since we don't need or want to mark a line as both.
Step 4. Line up verse, tables of contents, and other lists.
The HTML tag
tells the browser to force a line break without
starting a new paragraph. We use this when we don't want text all
wrapped together, but not separated with blank lines either, for
example in verse and tables of contents.
In our sample, we add the
tag to the end of each line in the
table of contents and the end of each line of the verse. If we were
working on a whole book of poetry, the same principle would apply,
but we'd be using the
tag a lot more.
Where we want to indent a line of poetry, we can use " " at
the start of the line. Normally, however many spaces you leave
between words, HTML condenses them to one space, so normal
indentation doesn't work. But the "non-breaking space" entity will
cause the browser to show one space for each character, so that
you can indent as much as you need.
The file htmstep4.htm shows the effect: this is now an entirely
readable HTML text!
Step 5. Add back in italics and bold.
The HTML tag tells the browser to start displaying italics,
and the tells it to stop. Similarly, the tag tells it
to display bold, and marks the end of the bold text. See
htmstep5.htm for the changes.
Step 6. Restore accents and special characters.
Since we declared our HTML file to use ISO-8859-1 back at the start,
we can use any of the common accented characters for Western European
languages, but we may also use HTML entities. For example, for the
"a circumflex" in "flaneur", we can use either the ISO-8859 character
directly, or the HTML entity name "â" or number "â".
There is a trade-off between characters and entities: entities do not
limit you to any particular character set, but characters are directly
readable when looking at the HTML source.
Within entitles, there is also a trade-off between entity names and
numbers: older browsers may not recognize some of the entity names, but
the entities do make the text work in multiple character sets. Which you
choose is entirely up to you, but it's best to be consistent; if you
like entities, use them everywhere. Entities can be represented by their
names--for example, —--or by their number, derived from their
ISO-10646 (see Unicode) number--for example, —.
There are other special character entities you may choose, to replace
the ASCII equivalents in the main text. Here are some of the common
ones:
We've already seen
& & ampersand replaces "&"
< < less than replaces "<"
> > greater than replaces ">"
space replaces a space when you want to indent
and these are also very useful for many PG texts:
— — em-dash replaces "--"
° ° degree replaces "deg." or "degrees"
£ £ British pound replaces "L" or "l" or "pounds"
There are many others.
has a fuller list. Please note that you don't _have_ to use these
entities in your HTML; if you're happy with the text reading
"500 pounds", there is no need to make that "£500".
I've made a couple of entity changes in htmstep6.htm.
Step 7. Link Images into the text.
First, you need to have your image ready. You should already have
resized your image to the size you want it to be viewed at. You
should also have saved it as a GIF, JPG, or PNG image, since those
are the formats most supported by current browsers.
If your image is named front.gif, and it is a picture of the
frontispiece of the book, you should add the line
to your HTML at the place where you want it displayed.
The "alt" text gives a label to the image, and is displayed if
the image can't be shown, or in the case of a browser for
visually impaired people.
You don't _have_ to add images with your HTML file, unless you
want to. In many older books, there are no images at all to
be added.
My final HTML text is now in htmstep7.htm. You need to have
the image front.gif in the same directory in order to see it.
When your HTML text is posted, the images will be zipped with
it, so that future readers can see them.
Step 8. Over to you!
This is enough to make a reasonable HTML format of most PG
texts, but it doesn't begin to cover everything that can be
done in HTML. If you've gone this far, I recommend the W3C's
tutorials:
which cover the ground we've just crossed, and go a bit further.
Here are a few more things you might want to know, but don't go
nuts adding tags just because you can! Use them only when you
really need them. The file htmstep8.htm shows some of these
techniques. Personally, I think that this is a bit overdone,
and I prefer the effect of htmstep7, with left-aligned
chapter headings, but that's a matter of taste.
Once you're used to the basic HTML needed for most PG eBooks,
you'll probably be able to convert one in under an hour.
How do I force more space between specific paragraphs?
Insert a blank paragraph like this:
or
use an extra
tag.
How do I make text, or image, or headings centered?
Put the and tags around what you want centered,
like:
Chapter 12
and
tags.
These will cause whatever is within them to be displayed as
plain text, just as it was in the original, so that spaces
separate the entries just as they did in the text version.
You can also use this for poetry, though you usually won't
need to. It's not entirely satisfactory, but it will work.
Making a full HTML table requires you to use the ,
(table row), and (table detail) tags, among others,
and a full exposition of tables is beyond the scope of this FAQ.
Briefly, you start a table with the tag.
For each row you want in the table, you open and close a table
row tag, like:
and then for each cell within a row, you specify a tag and
the contents of that cell:
This is the Top Left cell
This is the Top Right cell
This is the Bottom Left cell
This is the Bottom Right cell
This only scratches the surface of tables. However, there are many
guides available on the Web, and they're easy to find, once you
know which tags you're looking for. A brief discussion of tables
is provided by the W3C as part of the HTML 4.01 spec at
and
the tutorial at
also shows how to make HTML tables.
Step 9. Some common problems
When you're just starting to code HTML, it may seem that errors are
coming at you from all sides. Tidy may spew out a stream of complaints
that you don't recognize or understand. If it's any consolation, this
is normal!
Just take the error list one line at a time, starting at the top.
Often, one actual mistake, like not closing a tag, may cause many
errors, since an unclosed tag can cause many subsequent tags to
be reported as errors.
Common errors include:
1. Simple typos in tags, like instead of
Chapter 3
2. Unclosed tags, like forgetting to add the in the
sample above, or forgetting the slash in the closing
tag so that you type italics instead of
italics.
3. Not nesting tags correctly. Get used to thinking of tags
as brackets; the first one opened should be the last one
closed. For example, you should type:
This is centered.
This is centered.
One option for making a HTML version is to use GutenMark
OmniPage
TextBridge
These are the three main commercial packages that volunteers bought
specifically for the purpose. In a few cases, people had got older
versions of these bundled with their scanners.
Clara OCR
These are Free Software packages. Some people who responded to the
survey had tried them, but nobody had actually used them to produce a
text.
DocMorph -- a free, web-based OCR
emacs
Microsoft Word
vi
Windows WordPad
Word Perfect
Other editors mentioned included:
Crisp for Windows
Editplus for Windows
Microsoft Word
Nisus Writer
TextSpresso .
Gutcheck was used for format checking,
and a few people had written some checking procedures of their own.
4. Working with HTML
In the survey, most volunteers preferred to handcraft their HTML using
their normal editor. Those using a word processor edited the HTML as
text, rather than composing a word processor file and then Saving As
HTML. There was remarkable unanimity on this.
Specific HTML editors that were mentioned for occasional use were:
Adobe PageMill (no longer available)
Mozilla Composer
HTMLKit has the original, and links to
versions of Tidy for Windows (Tidy-GUI) and just about all other
platforms.
GutenMark:
Converts Project Gutenberg texts to HTML and TeX.
Lynx (lynx --dump):
Converts HTML to text
Dave Raggett's HTML Tidy:
Checks HTML for correctness, reformats and fixes
W3C html2txt (web-based):
Converts HTML to plain text.
W3C Validator (web-based):
The Last Word on the correctness of HTML.
wget:
A very neat utility for getting web pages
Adobe Photoshop
For advanced image processing
ImageMagick for *nix, Mac and Windows
Resizing and format conversion
The Gimp
For advanced image processing
VuePrint Pro
For viewing images
should bring up information about the
codepage you're interested in, or you can read the excellent overview
at . For Unix users, iconv
and recode provide translation facilities from one character set to
another, and support many or all of the MS codepages.
DVI
DVI stands for DeVice Independent, and is commonly used to store text
and instructions for displaying it involving complex mathematical
symbols and expressions, though it can be used for any content. Given
a DVI file, you need a viewer to render it on the specific device
you're using. Specifically, DVI is used as the standard output format
for TeX, discussed below.
HTML/HTM (Format)
HyperText Markup Language defines the standard format of web pages.
You should be able to view these with any web browser, and edit them
with any text editor or a specialized HTML editor. is
the definitive reference.
ISO-8859/ISO-Latin (Character Sets)
ISO-8859 is a series of character sets used to represent the accented
characters most commonly used in European languages. There's
ISO-8859-1, ISO-8859-2, and so on. ISO-Latin is just another name for
the same thing. You can read the overview at
LIT (Format for PDA-based eBooks)
This is a proprietary, closed format for files that can be displayed
only by the Microsoft Reader. Search for
more information. It is not possible to edit or correct files in this
format; it is not possible to export files from this format; they have
to be made in another format and converted.
MacRoman (Character Set)
MacRoman is an 8-bit Apple Mac-specific character set which allows the
display of accented characters and other symbols. To view a text that
uses MacRoman, you will have to use an application that supports it,
and there are few outside the Apple fold. However, iconv and recode
are programs that convert between many character sets, and MacRoman
is supported by both.
MID/MIDI (Format for music)
Musical Instrument Digital Interface is a music description language,
encompassing not only file formats but definitions of interfaces. A
MIDI file contains instructions for sending messages to a musical
instrument to recreate the sounds.
MPEG/MPG (Format for moving pictures)
The Moving Pictures Expert Group have released a series of formats for
encoding video and audio. MPEG (pronounced EM-peg) formats are
published and widely used. The official home page of the MPEG is
MUS (Format for music)
MUS from Coda Music
PDB (Format for PDA-based eBooks)
The Palm Data Base format can actually be used for purposes other
than eBooks, and there are many possible variants of formats for
Palm-based readers all using the extension PDB on PCs, and they're
not all entirely compatible. Some of them are proprietary, and it
may not be possible to edit them directly, or export files from
these formats; they have to be made in another format and converted.
Some can be converted back to text. The most common, though, is the
"Palm-DOC" format, which is an open format and can be edited on the
Palm itself.
PDF (Format for eBooks)
Portable Document Format is a format for storing texts, containing any
fonts or graphics. It is copyrighted by Adobe,
but is well and publicly documented. It is sometimes referred to as a
kind of compiled Postscript (see PS below). It is viewable using the
Adobe Acrobat Reader. It is not possible to edit files in this format.
PRC (Format for PDA-based eBooks)
This is a proprietary format for files that can be displayed only by
the MobiPocket Reader. See for more
information. It is not possible to edit or correct files in this
format; it is not possible to export files from this format; they have
to be made in another format and converted.
PS (Format for text and graphics)
Postscript is technically a programming language, not just a format.
It has conditional statements, procedures and program flow control.
However, it is commonly referred to as a format. Adobe
holds copyright on the Postscript specifications
(there have been three "levels" published) but Postscript is well and
publicly documented and has wide support, not only in printing, but in
screen display as well. Apart from Adobe's official version, you can
also render Postscript files with Ghostscript, a Free Software
package. Postscript can be edited directly, but any complex editing
may present difficulties.
RTF (Format for text)
Rich Text Format was originally a Microsoft specification, but it is
an open format that is used by many word processors to exchange text
and format information in an application-independent way. Nearly all
current word processors will read and edit an RTF file, and, like
HTML, it can also be edited as plain text.
TXT
TXT is a generic extension used for any plain text file, regardless of
the character set. Thus, while most of our .TXT files contain ASCII,
some contain ISO-8859 or Big-5 or Unicode.
TeX (Format for typesetting, printing and viewing)
TeX (pronounced "tech"--the "X" is actually the Greek letter chi) is a
public domain format created by Donald Knuth for typesetting, though
it can also be used for normal printing and viewing. TeX consists
mostly of the plain text, with instructions for how it is to be
displayed. This is compiled into DVI format (see above) which can be
rendered onto any device, like a printer or screen, by a program that
is aware of the device's capabilities. The Comprehensive TeX Archive
Network
for more.
XML (Format for . . . well, just about anything :-)
eXtensible Markup Language looks a bit like HTML, but whereas tags
such as have a standard meaning in HTML, XML allows anyone to
define their own set of tags and meanings using a Document Type
Definition (DTD) file. Add a CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) file to
that, and you have the ability to display the text according to
predefined rules. In principle, this seems to make it ideal for the
storage and processing of etexts, since a suitable DTD and CSS,
together with the right programs, should make it possible to produce
any format of eBook automatically from an XML original. Some PG
volunteers have looked at, and are looking at, ways to convert the
entire archive using a satisfactory DTD; however, meantime we aren't
actually producing much XML, since most volunteers aren't working with
it, and nobody wants to start producing many XML texts until we have
agreed on a DTD. , and held the key down while Vim
zipped through the rest of the file. It sped it up by a factor of
over a hundred.)
My university library is well-stocked and has lots of old books, so
I usually rely on it when I need to get TP&V's for texts I'm not
typing in myself. I still don't have a scanner, so I either find
already-existing texts on the Internet and reformat them for Project
Gutenberg (after getting permission, of course), or find page images
on the net and OCR them myself, or type the books in by hand.
Typing in by hand takes a long time and so I prefer the first two
methods.
Volunteering with Project Gutenberg has been extremely satisfying.
The people are wonderful to work with, the work is fun, and it feels
very good to know that one is making a difference in the world.
Col Choat
How I got started
People sometimes ask me how I got started in preparing etexts for
Project Gutenberg, and while they probably ARE interested in my story
often they are really more interested in finding out whether it is
something that they might want to get involved with. Jim Tinsley, a
colleague at PG, recently prepared a "questionnaire" as a way of
stimulating existing volunteers to document their PG experiences.
Answering the questionnaire seems as good a way as any to answer the
question, "how did you get started".
HOW DID YOU LEARN ABOUT PG?
I think it was probably from a newspaper or a computer magazine. I
can't really recall, now.
WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CONTACT LIKE.
Initially, I visited the site to search for books I was interested in,
to see if they had been posted at PG. That was quite a straightforward
process. I downloaded a few texts and either read them at my computer
or, occasionally, printed them out to read later.
When I became interested in volunteering, I visited the site to get
some information about how to go about it. I found it a bit daunting,
really. There was a lot of information but it was difficult for me to
get it sorted out in my mind. There were copyright issues, editing
rules, and procedures for lodging etexts. There was a question and
answer page and some background and information for those wanting to
subscribe to the PG mailing lists. In the end, I just sent an e-mail to
Michael Hart, whose e-mail address was listed on the site, and said
"what can I do?" I notice that volunteers still sometimes do that.
WHAT WAS THE FIRST PG JOB YOU DID? HOW DID IT GO?
I decided to prepare an etext from a book I had in my home library,
titled "UNDER THE NORTHERN LIGHTS". It is a series of short stories
about the Canadian North by Alan Sullivan. I had a small "hand"
scanner at home, which I hadn't used much before. I didn't know any
better, so I would scan in about ten pages and save them as "tif"
files. Then I would use the OCR (Optical Character Recognition)
software supplied with the scanner to convert the image to text for
subsequent editing. I recently purchased an A4 scanner with
state-of-the-art OCR software and I can't believe how I persevered
with that hand scanner for so long.
I tried to apply the editing rules outlined on the PG site, though
they weren't as prescriptive as I would have liked. I wanted
certainty, as I felt that I didn't know enough to apply own editing
rules. I didn't have a good text editor, either, so I probably made
the job more difficult than it needed to be. More about the "tools of
the trade" later, though.
When I submitted the title pages of the book to PG for copyright
clearance it was rejected because the book was published in 1926. I
don't know what I was thinking about when I chose it. It must have
just LOOKED old enough. I had scanned and proofed about half of it, so
I just abandoned it and looked for something else. Interestingly,
Australians and residents in other countries with similar copyright
laws, can now read it as it is in the public domain in Australia and
is now on the Project Gutenberg of Australia site. I was able to
finish it and post it at PG, after all.
HOW DID YOU DEVELOP YOUR PG EXPERIENCE FROM THERE?
I think that one of the most valuable things I did was to join the
volunteer discussion group. I found that I didn't need to take part,
but could just take note of all the different issues raised by other
volunteers. Some days there was no activity by the group, but then a
hot topic would be raised (e.g. whether some books, such as Mein Kampf
by Adolf Hitler, should not be accepted by PG, even if eligible) and
there would be plenty of comments. I realised also that I could ask
for help on specific questions regarding preparation of texts and
receive prompt informative answers. Once, when I thought that I was
sending to ONE of the members of the group an e-mail with a large
attachment, I was quickly made aware that EVERYONE had received it.
Some weren't amused, but I am a quick learner--I didn't do it again.
Subscribing to the weekly newsletter is also worthwhile. There is a
link on the main page of the PG web site to allow people to subscribe
to the mailing list and discussion group. I also found a few people
who I began to e-mail privately, outside the discussion group. That
helped a lot, too. Perhaps there is merit in instigating a mentor
scheme, whereby a new volunteer can refer to another more experienced
one for help, guidance and encouragement. I would be interested in
taking part in that.
CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE FIRST TEXT YOU PRODUCED.
As I mentioned earlier, my first attempt was abortive (initially, at
least). However, as I had realised that there was not much Australian
content on PG, I decided to go in that direction. Then I found that
there were many eligible Australian titles already on the internet,
mostly in HTML format. These can only be read using a web browser, so
I decided that it would be worthwhile to download them, convert them
to text files, compare them with a book of the same title which was
eligible for PG copyright approval, and then have them posted at PG. I
had learned my lesson, so from then on I always got the approval
BEFORE I started work on the conversion.
I prepared a number of etexts using this method and quickly increased
the amount of Australian content at PG. However, I still wanted to
create an etext from a book. My sister had given me, as a gift,
"Australia's Greatest Books" by Geoffrey Dutton, which reviewed
approximately one hundred books and I decided to work my way through
them. I had already converted a number from HTML, as outlined above,
so the first on the list to be scanned turned out to be the journal of
Charles Sturt who explored south-eastern Australia between 1828 and
1831. I was quite pleased with myself when the two volumes were
finally posted at PG.
WHY DO YOU SPEND YOUR HOURS CONTRIBUTING TO PG?
The simple answer is "because it is FUN". It is easy to make up
justifications, but since there is no necessity to do it, it must be
because I enjoy it. I get a sense of achievement that the work I do
will be "out there" for a long time. We haven't begun to realise where
technology will lead us. The books I prepare will be able to be read
by people anywhere on earth, and even beyond, by astronauts travelling
to Mars. "Send up THE ODYSSEY will you Scottie, I have always meant to
read it."
I have had some unexpected pleasures, too. I have "met" some
wonderfully generous and interesting people and I have read some
wonderful books that I would not have taken the trouble to read if I
weren't preparing them for PG.
DO YOU SPECIALISE IN ANY PARTICULAR KIND OF WORK, OR TEXTS?
I started out thinking that I would stick to books with an Australian
flavour. But I can't help myself. If I see something that I am
interested in, and it is already on the internet, but not at PG, I
have to do it. I have submitted etexts of James Joyce's "Ulysses", and
works by D. H. Lawrence, and Norman Douglas. I also have a long list
of books I would like to scan in myself, not all of which are about
Australia--one day.
WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT MAKING A PG ETEXT?
I think I have covered that already. I like the sense of achievement,
the fun of reading the book, and the thought that it will be available
to many people who would not otherwise have access to it, possibly in
a form which has not yet been invented.
WHAT DO YOU DISLIKE ABOUT MAKING A PG ETEXT?
Sometimes the going is not easy. Occasionally I get impatient with the
length of time it is taking and sometimes I get bored with the subject
matter. I recently purchased a new scanner with excellent OCR
software, which converts the page image to text, and that has given me
a new lease of life because less proofing is required. I sometimes
remind myself that I don't have to do it, then I find that I want to
anyway.
WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR ELIGIBLE BOOKS
Local libraries have a surprising amount of eligible material. The
main difficulty is finding books with a publication date of 1922 or
earlier, for PG in the US anyway. I have found a number of "facsimile"
editions which are direct reprints of the original, and these are
acceptable. I also look around second-hand bookshops. I recently found
a battered copy of "A short history of Australia" published in about
1910, and bought it for $A1.50. For books eligible for posting at the
PG Australian site, cheap paperbacks are readily available. I am
working on one now, and have ripped all the pages out of it to make it
easier to scan. It only cost a few dollars. There are also a number of
sites on the internet which list second-hand books for sale.
DO YOU TYPE OR SCAN? WHAT SCANNER/OCR/EDITOR/WORD PROCESSOR DO YOU
PREFER?
This section might as well cover all of the "tools of the trade". I
have noticed that volunteers have many favourite tools, and from what
I can make out most will do the job. The list below covers what _I_
have settled on. I should note that I work in the Windows environment,
and tools are readily available for all the things I need to do.
Scanner
I recently purchased a Canon A4 flatbed scanner without a document
feeder for under $A200. It has a hinged lid for scanning books and
comes bundled with image enhancing software and OCR software for
converting image to text.
OCR (Optical Character Recognition) Software
'Omnipage Version 9' came bundled with the scanner. I find that I
don't need any of the other software which came with the
scanner--Omnipage does it all for me. I can scan, proof, spellcheck
and save the output to a text file with very little effort.
Editor
I use Editplus which is available as shareware on the internet. It
enables me to read in the file produced by the Omnipage OCR software
and reformat it to a line length suitable for PG texts (about 70
characters). It also allows one to display guide lines vertically on
the page to help with checking for "long" lines. I have loaded James
Joyce's "Ulysses" into Editplus and it handled it, so I presume that
it will handle files of any size. As with everything one wants to do
at PG, there is always someone more than willing to help with problems
encountered, just by posing questions to the volunteer discussion.
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) Software
Some volunteers e-mail their submissions to PG as an attachment to an
e-mail. However, it is also possible to place them at the PG site for
processing, using FTP. Microsoft Windows Explorer has an FTP facility
which can handle this and that suits me. I know that there are many
others and SmartFTP is an excellent freeware product for those who
need Windows-based FTP software.
Other Tools
I use Microsoft Word to convert HTML files to text files. Firstly, I
cut and paste the html document into word, then I convert any italics
to upper case, since italics are not supported in plain text files;
then I save the document as a text file. Then I use Editplus,
mentioned above, to reformat the line length. Sometimes it is
necessary to add an extra "carriage return" at the end of each
paragraph, to comply with the preferred style for PG texts. This can
be done from within Word or Editplus by replacing characters. New
volunteers may need to ask for information about this process.
HOW DO YOU CHECK YOUR TEXT? ANY SPECIAL TOOLS? SPELLCHECKER? DO YOU
PRINT IT OUT AND READ IT? PUT IT ON YOUR PDA AND READ IT? HAVE A VOICE
SYNTHESIS PROGRAM READ IT ALOUD TO YOUR FROM YOUR PC?
I have tried a few different methods. I don't have a notebook computer
or etext reader so I must either read it on a PC or print it out.
There is a spellchecker with Editplus, which allows one to add new
words, so I use that to begin with. I also use GUTCHECK, a program
developed by Jim Tinsley, which picks up many errors. One would need
to contact him via PG, if one wanted a copy. I travel by train to
work, so I often make a printout and read that for the final proof, or
co-opt my wife if it is something I can interest her in. I have a
checklist, which I have developed over time, that I use to ensure that
I have covered all that I need to--but then I AM one for lists.
DO YOU HAVE ANY TIPS 'N' TRICKS OR SPECIAL ROUTINES YOU GO THROUGH
WHEN PREPARING A TEXT?
I think I have covered most of my methods already. I sometimes find
that "dashes" within sentences need attention. I like to show them as
"--" so I try to be consistent and not let them slip through as " - ".
I think we at PG could get together a more or less prescriptive list
of editing rules for new volunteers to follow. Once they gained
experience they could change them if they wanted to. I do like to
place an end marker ("THE END") at the end of my progressing work, so
that I don't inadvertently lose any of it and I make several rotating
backups of the file I am working on. I have "lost" computer files once
or twice over the years and don't want to get that sick feeling in my
stomach EVER again.
As I said earlier, I do have a checklist, and it could help if PG
(that includes me, as PG is "us") provided a downloadable list of
things which need to be done to get an etext posted e.g. copyright
approval, scanning, editing, proofing, placing relevant information at
the beginning of the etext, etc. All the information is there already,
it just needs bringing together into one document.
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE YOU TO MAKE A TEXT?
Obviously it depends on the number of pages, efficiency of the scanner
and the number of hours one puts in. The two volumes of Sturt
mentioned above probably took me six months, but I was doing many
other things in the meantime. To scan in and edit, say, "The Prophet"
by Kahlil Gibran would only take a fraction of that time as it is
quite thin and easy to read. If one were concerned about getting an
idea of the time it would take to complete an etext, I would suggest
that he/she do a little casual proofing at the "Distributed
Proofreaders" site first, to get an idea of what is involved.
DO YOU WORK ALONE, OR DO YOU SHARE THE WORK OF EACH TEXT? DOES ANYONE
REGULARLY HELP YOU PROOF THE TEXT?
I generally work alone, however my wife will proof sometimes. She has
become interested in the book that I am working on at present and is
waiting for me to supply her with more pages. When I was getting
started, a new volunteer agreed to proof something for me (she
approached me) but then she never did any of it and didn't even e-mail
me to advise that she had changed her mind. Editing and proofing is
not for everybody and one needs to find out if one likes doing it.
However, courtesy costs nothing.
DO YOU DO SOME PG WORK REGULARLY, OR DRIFT IN AND OUT AS OPPORTUNITY
PERMITS, OR WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE IT.
All of the above at different times. I am not an avid television
watcher and would rather do some "work" (or should I say "pleasure")
for PG much of the time.
HOW MANY DIFFERENT KINDS OF WORK, OR DIFFERENT BOOKS, HAVE YOU DONE?
Because I have converted many books from work already on the internet,
I have covered quite a range, though I haven't actually scanned and
proofed too many books. Those that I have done have been Australian
historical works. But I have rounded up books on philosophy,
aboriginal legends, and several novels. Since many internet sites come
and go, I am interested in "grabbing" etexts and posting them at PG in
case the site disappears from the internet. It has become a pastime in
itself. I recently discovered "South Wind" by Norman Douglas, a book
which caused quite a sensation when it was first published because it
portrayed a bohemian lifestyle. Ironically, I used to have the book in
my home library, but dispensed with it when I needed space. Now it is
at PG and I can get it whenever I want it.
WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT THE PG PROCESS?
The democratic, helpful, friendly approach of all the people involved
is one of the things I like best. I have "met" so many wonderful
people, without having to "live" with them, if you know what I mean.
Not long after I started associating with PG, Michael Hart posted an
e-mail to the volunteer discussion group, advising of the death of a
long-time volunteer. It seemed like she had been one of the "family".
One really needs to be indifferent to praise and the prospect of
reward to start volunteering for PG. There is certainly no money in
it. However, one quickly finds that there is a community of people out
there with a common interest, and with the same outlook and the same
interest in doing a job well, without tangible reward. There is no
lack of praise though, and one soon finds that one is not indifferent
to it.
WHAT DO YOU DISLIKE ABOUT THE PG PROCESS?
There isn't much that I don't like. Nothing worth mentioning, anyway.
IS THERE ANYTHING YOU'D LIKE TO SEE PG DOING DIFFERENTLY?
There are a few things, however since I don't know all the reasons for
some things being done the way they are, and because everything is
done by volunteers anyway, I wouldn't like to canvass them here. To
have produced nearly 5,000 etexts over more than 30 years is testament
to the fact that most things are being done "right".
IF ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS APPROACHED YOU TO ASK ADVICE ABOUT HOW TO GET
STARTED CONTRIBUTING TO PG, WHAT WOULD YOU TELL THEM?
I would spend some time with him/her and work through some of the
issues. I know that I would have benefited from that approach. I would
gradually introduce her(him) to the different issues which need to be
addressed and find out exactly what her expectations were, and try to
help her in fulfilling them.
WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT PG TO BE LIKE IN FIVE YEARS? TEN YEARS?
Much the same as it is now, I hope. After all, the goal will continue
to be to provide "fine literature digitally re-published". Though I
expect that, like other organisations, it will continue to evolve in
response to new challenges and opportunities. Ten years ago, who would
have thought that there would be 5,000 etexts posted; that there would
be volunteers operating an online proofreading site; and that there
would be a volunteer writing free software to read PG etexts? The
rapid growth of PG over the last few years will present many
challenges for the future.
Writing of etext readers, I am reminded that I recently joked to a
volunteer that I wanted him to write software for reading etexts,
whereby a hologram would appear on the inside of my eyelids so that I
could read etexts with my eyes closed. Who knows, it might be
possible. However, whatever advances in technology occur over the next
ten years, one thing is certain: the work of all the volunteers to
date will ensure that there is an amazing library of ebooks available
covering creative works by some of the greatest minds who have ever
lived. Future readers of PG ebooks will have been given a wonderful
gift by the many volunteers who have contributed to PG over the
decades.
Project Gutenberg of Australia
On the wall in a colleague's office was pinned a piece of paper on
which was written a quotation. I don't recall now what it was and the
colleague has been gone for some time and has taken the paper with
him. However under the quotation the author was acknowledged as
"Prince Machiavelli". I had a vague idea that the quote actually came
from "The Prince" by Nicolo Machiavelli, and wondered how I could
satisfy my curiosity. Then I remembered reading about Project
Gutenberg and decided to see if the book was posted on the PG site,
though I didn't really expect that it would be. Needless to say, the
etext WAS there and I was able to download it and read it in its
entirety, due to the time spent by John Bickers and Bonnie Sala (their
names appear at the beginning of the etext) in preparing it for PG.
Interestingly, there were other works by Machiavelli there, which I
hope to get back to one day.
Later, when I e-mailed PG and expressed an interest in volunteering I
was, because I said that I was Australian, referred to Sue Asscher,
the Australian Production Director for PG. Sue asked me to proofread
"A Vindication of the Rights of Women" by Mary Wollstonecraft. Also,
about this time, a journalist had contacted Sue with regard to a story
being prepared for PG. He wanted to contact some volunteers to ask why
they were interested in PG. Sue referred the journalist to me, with my
permission of course, and one of his first questions was "Is there
much Australian content on PG?" After I had checked the PG etext list
I could only reply "not much".
So I decided to start creating etexts by Australian authors, for PG.
Sue Asscher pointed out that there were many eligible Australian works
already in the public domain as etexts, so I started rounding up
etexts and matching them with books which had been published before
1923, so that they could be posted at PG. Then I started creating
etexts myself, for works I could not find already on the internet. My
sister had given me, many years ago, a book by Geoffrey Dutton titled
"Australia's Greatest Books", so I decided to start working my way
through the eligible titles from the list of about one hundred books
reviewed by Dutton. I had already found a number of them on the
internet and some were already at PG. But there were still a "few" to
be done. There still ARE a few to be done, if anyone is interested in
helping.
Then Sue Asscher again had a hand in setting the direction I would
take by asking me to proof an etext of "Animal Farm" by George Orwell,
whose work had recently entered the public domain in Australia. We
didn't know where we would post it, as it is not in the public domain
in the US, but I agreed to proof it as I had read it many years ago
and enjoyed it.
About this time, I also decided to make up a personal web site. Being
a software developer, people were always asking me about the internet
and web sites, in the mistaken belief that I knew ALL about computers.
I decided to get an idea of how web page design and web site
management worked by creating a site that listed all of the
"Australian" content at PG. When I couldn't find anywhere to put the
Orwell, which I had recently proofed, I decided to create a page on my
site for etexts in the public domain in Australia, so that Australians
and internet users in other countries with similar copyright laws,
could read and/or download them.
Michael Hart, the founder of PG, was quick to interest me in creating
an "official" PG site in Australia. After registering a business
name, getting a domain name and finding a sponsor to host the site,
Project Gutenberg of Australia was up and running.
It all happened very quickly, and as with many things which happen in
one's life, it all seems to have come about by serendipity. Even the
site's motto "A treasure-trove of literature" was stumbled upon by
chance when I looked up, in connection with another unrelated matter,
the word "treasure-trove" in a dictionary, to ascertain if the word
was hyphenated. Imagine my surprise to find treasure-trove defined as
"treasure found hidden with no evidence of ownership". That EXACTLY
defined the literature found on PG.
My own association with PG resulted from the culmination of a
life-long interest in books and literature and an equally strong
interest in computers. Every volunteer brings his/her own particular
interests and skills to PG and that, together with the democratic
approach taken by the small executive team, is what makes PG the
strong, co-operative organisation that it is. My interests and skills,
and a generous dose of serendipity, led to the creation of Project
Gutenberg of Australia.
Dagny
I discovered Project Gutenberg in 1996 and immediately wanted to help
because I love books and wanted everyone to have access to all the
wonderful books that, even today with Internet searching, are
difficult to find or very expensive when you do locate them.
I began by proofing a few works but what I really wanted to do was
share my Balzac collection with other fans. I discovered Balzac in the
1970s and recall my frustrations in trying to find more than a dozen
stories of the over one hundred Balzac wrote. It was over a decade
before my husband discovered a complete set at a used bookstore while
on vacation. Unfortunately, not everyone is so lucky.
With the first few stories I typed for Project Gutenberg I worried
about everything: should I correct a type-setting error, leave it,
footnote it, etc. This took a long time and involved a lot of
correspondence. Now, my idea is to make the text as readable as
possible. For me that means correcting type-setting errors I notice.
Others prefer to leave them intact. In the end, I don't believe the
readers care. I have found them generally to be very grateful to have
found some treasure they had been seeking. In some cases of an
author's more obscure works, they didn't even know the book existed,
a rare find indeed for them.
It is so satisfying to receive an e-mail from someone thanking you for
all your hard work. Most readers don't take the time to write but true
fans often do and they make it all worthwhile. I have even met people
in this way that went on to become a Project Gutenberg volunteer
themselves because they wanted to give something back to the Project
from which they had received so many pleasurable hours.
Gardner Buchanan
SOURCE MATERIAL
First of all, there is the issue of what texts I choose to do. For me,
this is fairly simple. I'm a bit of a small-time book collector
already, and have a personal theme: "Canadian English Literature" and
"Canadian English-Language History". I have no trouble whatsoever in
coming up with submissible editions of works that fit this theme
somehow. Nevertheless there are specific authors and works that I'm
not having luck with, so I'm still making the rounds of the used book
shops regularly and picking up all sorts of stuff.
Eligible volumes have typically cost me $10.00-$150.00 for a
collectable edition, or $0.50-$15.00 for a recent paperback edition or
garage-sale item. I paid $0.50 for a eligible, but not very
collectible copy of Glengary School Days by Ralph Connor at a garage
sale. As it turns out someone has beaten me to it--it has been in the
collection since 2001. Sometimes if I'm contemplating picking up a
more expensive book that I don't already have a personal interest in,
I'll go back and double-check The Online Books page to see if someone
has already submitted the book.
Another way I obtain texts is from the Early Canadiana Online archive.
They host page images of quite a large collection of old books written
in or about Canada, or written by Canadians. The page images are
reasonably well suited to OCR.
I tend to produce E-texts two different ways. One way is to submit
page images to Charles Franks who runs Distributed Proofers and let
him worry about bulk-OCR'ing. I then manage the distributed proofing,
which is a fairly low-effort business. The other way is to scan, OCR
and proof all by myself. I'm currently averaging two of my own
projects to every Distributed Proofer one.
SCANNING AND OCR
I have an very slow parallel-port scanner, a UMAX Astra 2000P. It
sucks mightily. I'd rate it a 2 out of 5, if it wasn't acting
up--creating a black bar across the page, part way along--so I have to
scan books a certain way around to avoid having the bar land in the
text. As it sits now, it's in 0.5-1 territory. It is glacially slow at
the best of times, and due to being a parallel port model, locks up my
whole computer during the scan.
Nevertheless, it is completely adequate to my needs for PG work. I've
scanned more than a dozen books on it, and it's done yeoman
service--despite its warts. Scanners like this one can be picked up
used for $30, and are worth the money.
The way I work when I'm producing a book myself, is scanning and
proofing page by page. I do the scans two-pages-up, then OCR, proof
and copy the pages to a working document, before going on to scan the
next pair of pages.
My scanner came with two OCR "packages": Omnipage something-or-other
which I was never able to install, and Recognita Standard 3.2.7. I use
Recognita, and for 300dpi scans I do, it is adequately fast and
accurate. It is a no-frills package, and DOES make many mistakes, but
it is entirely useable for my purposes. I rate it 2 of 5.
I've used the Abbyy FineReader 5.0 try & buy. This is a magnificent
OCR system. It handles huge batches and is fast and astoundingly
accurate. I rate it 5 out of 5. Unfortunately it costs about $million
to patriate a web-bought item into Canada, and while priced at a very
reasonable US$100.00, would cost me about CAN$600 after exchange-rate,
brokerage fees, shipping, more fees, taxes,
service charges and more taxes (on the fees).
I could buy Omnipage off-the-shelf here, but frankly if I can't get
Abbyy, I'll stick with Recognita.
As I scan each page, I paste it into Windows-95 Wordpad. Sometimes I
also do some proofing in Wordpad, but mainly I proof, fix quotes,
M-dashes and paragraph breaks in the OCR program before copying to
Wordpad. I like to keep the page boundaries intact, and I mark them in
my Wordpad document like this:
:
:
kjdk ldjd ll;llkj dklj dklj
kjdk ljd llllkj klj dklj
page 354
kjdk ldjd lll;;llkj dklj dklj
kjdk ldd lll;;llkj dklj dklj
kjdk ldjd ll;llkj dklj dklj
kjdk ljd llllkj klj dklj
page 355
kjdk ldd lll;;llkj dklj dklj
kjdk ldjd ll;llkj dklj dklj
kjdk ldd lll;;llkj dklj dklj
kjdk ljd llllkj klj dklj
:
:
At this point I also fix-up hyphenated words that straddle
page-boundaries. I note paragraphs that start in a new page and mark
them with , and I note indented or block-quoted sections and mark
these with .. . This helps when I go back to format it since I
can easily see where the special cases are.
Wordpad handles large documents reasonably well and will grok UNIX
files (ie: only, not ). For this it rates 3.
PROOFING AND FORMATTING
When the whole text is assembled, whether by myself or by Distributed
Proofers, I use about the same process for formatting and final
proofing.
I use MS-Word 95 to do a spellcheck. This I rate 3 out of 5. I do a
select-all, and language appropriately - for me, usually UK rather
than American English. I wish I had a Canadian English dictionary for
Word 95, but have not needed one badly enough to actually look. Word
has a pretty good spell checker and the custom dictionaries are easy
to muck around with. I use a custom dictionary for any big project - I
have one for Chronicles of Canada, and different one for all the John
Richardson books I've done.
At this point in my personal process, I abandon Windows and go over to
FreeBSD.
I use vi (rated 9 out of 5) to do a number of hacks. I search for and
fix up hyphenations that were broken (peer- less) and such like. I
also search for and fix some OCR special case errors like 'you'->'yon'
and 'be'->'he'. This latter sometimes requires a while, just to step
through all the be and he's to see if they're right.
Still in vi, I next use some incantations to run the UNIX 'fmt'
command on each paragraph to get it reformatted. I use:
fmt -55 60
Fmt gets a 3 out-of 5 for what I need it for. It double spaces after
sentences, which--although it is probably the right thing to do--is
not the PG convention (for me at least). It also adds a space when
joining lines with an M-dash. I go back and fix both of these using
vi. I take into account the
Donations
List of FTP sites
Web Browse to texts
Volunteers' Board
Books In Progress
(The InProg List)
Greek Transliteration
Music
GUTINDEX.ALL
(Complete list of posted eBooks)
B.2. Distributed Proofing Sites:
Charles Franks
Dewayne Cushman
B.3. Other On-Line eBook Pages:
The On-Line Books Page
Internet Public Library
On-Line Requested List
Steve Harris' "To-do"s
B.5. Finding Paper Books On-Line:
Advanced Book Exchange
Alibris
Trussel BookSearch
Library of Congress Catalog
B.6. Character Sets
Overviews
ISO-8859
Microsoft & Other Codepages
Unicode
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to your HTML at the place where you want it displayed.
The "alt" text gives a label to the image, and is displayed if
the image can't be shown, or in the case of a browser for
visually impaired people.
You don't _have_ to add images with your HTML file, unless you
want to. In many older books, there are no images at all to
be added.
My final HTML text is now in htmstep7.htm. You need to have
the image front.gif in the same directory in order to see it.
When your HTML text is posted, the images will be zipped with
it, so that future readers can see them.
Step 8. Over to you!
This is enough to make a reasonable HTML format of most PG
texts, but it doesn't begin to cover everything that can be
done in HTML. If you've gone this far, I recommend the W3C's
tutorials:
or use an extra
tag. How do I make text, or image, or headings centered? Put the
Chapter 12
andtags. These will cause whatever is within them to be displayed as plain text, just as it was in the original, so that spaces separate the entries just as they did in the text version. You can also use this for poetry, though you usually won't need to. It's not entirely satisfactory, but it will work. Making a full HTML table requires you to use the
(table detail) tags, among others,
and a full exposition of tables is beyond the scope of this FAQ.
Briefly, you start a table with the | tag and
the contents of that cell:
|
Chapter 32. Unclosed tags, like forgetting to add the in the sample above, or forgetting the slash in the closing tag so that you type italics instead of italics. 3. Not nesting tags correctly. Get used to thinking of tags as brackets; the first one opened should be the last one closed. For example, you should type:This is centered. have a standard meaning in HTML, XML allows anyone to
define their own set of tags and meanings using a Document Type
Definition (DTD) file. Add a CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) file to
that, and you have the ability to display the text according to
predefined rules. In principle, this seems to make it ideal for the
storage and processing of etexts, since a suitable DTD and CSS,
together with the right programs, should make it possible to produce
any format of eBook automatically from an XML original. Some PG
volunteers have looked at, and are looking at, ways to convert the
entire archive using a satisfactory DTD; however, meantime we aren't
actually producing much XML, since most volunteers aren't working with
it, and nobody wants to start producing many XML texts until we have
agreed on a DTD. , and I note indented or block-quoted sections and mark
these with |