Make a book

[Rudy]

Anybody know how I may be able to copy the words and pictures from the Blue Bird thread on to a CD? I have all the photos from my file copied and will be sending some of them to my parents in Florida. They don't have a computer, so I will go to Walmart and have the files made into 3 by 5 photos. I would also like to save the words from the thread to make a book of the bus build for my brother. I tried to do something with Roxio disc creator tonight on my Computer that runs on Windows, but could not make it happen. I did successfully make a disc of all the photos though. They are jpegs. I even loaded them to my Mac. Any ideas? Thanks, Rudy

[Sharkey]

Rudy, the only way I know of doing this is to copy the text out of each individual post and then paste it into a word processor like Microsoft Word. The images will not copy off of the web page, you'll have to insert them in the spaces left in the pasted text. My browser (Opera) allows you to right-click an image, select "copy image to clipboard", and then you can paste that image into the word processor at the cursor. Your browser might be capable of doing the same, which would streamline the book composing process.

I ran into this when I copied "30 years in a Housetruck" to book form for the web site, although thaat was even more work because it all had to be formatted in HTML code to display properly.

The good news is that since you will be copying individual forum posts, you can leave out the comments by those of us in the peanut gallery.

You needed a winter project, right?

[Rudy]

Sharkey, I did want to include everyone's comments as well. Now I will have to learn how to use a word program. Oh wait, I just realized that my PC does not have a word program and my mac does. I certainly have to figure out how to network the two computers together. My friend Jamey, who plays music with us, and traded me the laptop, will know how. My PC laptop is hooked up to the web, and my iMac controls my recording studio.

[Rudy]

Sharkey, do you have any idea why sometimes, the photos on a thread only load up part ways (top one third)? Today I had to repost 50% of page four and 85% of page 18 on the Blue Bird thread. Any clues? Rudy

[Rudy]

This is driving me crazy. The flashlight thread is experiencing the same problems. I asked Jamey to see if the photos load up properly on his computer. I really don't want to have to monitor these postings and repost the photos all the time. I think it is on my end of the receiving line. Somebody please tell me if all of the flashlight photos are loading up properly when you go to that forum. Thanks, Rudy

[stuartcnz]

Rudy,
Your photo's are loading fine on my computer.

Rather than trying to network your mac and pc together, which will probably be quite difficult given they both speak different languages. May I suggest down loading a free word processing program to your pc, such as Open Office, which you can find at http://www.openoffice.org Open Office is very similar to microsoft word, but free.

[Rudy]

Stuart, Thanks for your reply and your suggestion about the free word program. I will download it. If I can get everything on a disc, then I can go to Kinkos and make a hard copy for future use. I'm glad to know the flashlight photos loaded up on your computer. I guess it is my inferior machine that is the problem. Rudy

[Rudy]

Stuart, I downloaded Open Office. I wish there was a version called "Open Office For Dummies". It will take a while to learn how to use that program. I am trying it out today. I remember when I first started using Photoshop. It took a while to get the hang of all the tools. Rudy

[Rudy]

Here is something VERY INTERESTING. I had mentioned that some of the pictures I had posted were not opening up all the way. Perhaps it is my computer because Stuart was not having that problem with my pictures on his computer. What I was doing to remedy this before was to delete the http code when I was in the edit mode, and then re-upload the picture from my files to Tinypic again. That usually worked, though not always. So a few days might go by and then I would experience the same thing with the pictures not opening all the way. That doesn't happen on other people's threads, only mine. So today I studied the http codes for the pictures when I was in edit mode. Here is a typical code. [img]http://i37.tinypic/ etc. etc. The thing that I noticed was if the (i37) number before the (.tinypic) was 33 or 34 or 35, those were the ones that were prone to not load up. I remember that Sharkey had fixed somebody's picture once so that it would load up to the forum by placing a dot in the right place. I thought I would get creative and change those numbers that were below i37 to i38. LO and BEHOLD! The pictures now opened up. Now how's that for sneaking in through the back door? I don't exactly know what I did, technically, but it works.

[GoodClue]

Hello Rudy,
Just a thought ... every Windows computer comes with a button on the upper register called Print Screen ... not sure what Mac has ...
This button captures the full screen as an image which, in my case, I paste into my Photo Editing program, Corel Photopaint, to crop, edit, etc.
I then import to CorelDraw for layout, adding/changing text, whatever is required.
It is MUCH easier than working with images and text in Wordprocessors.

You can also Google free screen capture programs ... they are free or inexpensive and give you greater control over what elements on the screen you wish to capture, up to complete web pages.

ZDNet, PCWorld.com, Kommando.com, Tucows.com ... many sites offer free software of all sorts ... graphics programs in this case, many open source programs, again for free, that work every bit as good as Adobe, Corel, etc. Google open source software.

I was first trained into Corel Draw with Corel Photopaint for a graphics company, Adobe products later. They are every bit as good as Adobe products, and much cheaper. I prefer it to Adobe Photoshop, probably because I started with it, plus it integrates page layout and photo editing in one program. I still use it for all my page layout and photo editing.

I'm not sure if you have photo editing and page layout software but it sure beats word processors ...

Many manuals are built this way ...

I'd be happy to help if needed,
Doug

[Rudy]

Cool Doug, I always wondered what those buttons do. I have one that has prt sc and then a line underneath that and then sys rq. That is all on one button. Then, next to that one is one that says pause break . After those is one that says insert. Next to that one is one that says home, and directly under those two buttons are a delete button and one that says end. I wish I had a manual for this laptop. I will try the prt sc button and see what it does. I have a program called Picasa photo viewer that has limited functions. I can't even resize photos. What I CAN do though is import stuff off a CD that I make on my laptop to my iMac which has Photoshop, and then make a CD from the mac. I'll let you know what happens . That Open Office program I downloaded looks complex. Thanks, Rudy

[GoodClue]

Hi Rudy,
Basically the Print Screen button captures to the systems Clip board which then can be pasted in most any program ... graphics, word processers, etc.

Using the mouse, Right Click and Paste into whatever program you're using. (Wordpad will create a text file, uneditable, but give you the image) ... that's when a photo-editing program comes in handy, for creating editable image files.

By pasting in a photoediting program you can do the intial cropping and editing ... say, eliminating all but the image, enhancing, and save as a JPEG ... .jpg is the most common, universal image file. Or crop, saving the text and image, as in this forum, for the purpose of your book.

Remeber ... Copyright infringement ... be sure you get the necessary permissions or releases ...

Doug

[Sharkey]

Not to be discouraging, but I don't think "print screen" is going to work worth a hoot. You will end up with a ~giant~ graphic that encompasses the whole of the page including the navigation menu, etc. Printing this graphic will use a lot of ink in places it's not needed due to the shading and page background colors.

Instead, I've installed a modification to the forum to allow a "Printer Friendly Version" of each topic page to be displayed and sent to your printer right from that view. Note that the Printer Friendly View page opens in a new window in your browser.

Each topic now has a new icon, a little picture of a printer, next to the "Post Reply" icon at the top and bottom of the topic page (you have to be logged in to see the new icon, sorry guest posters...). Clicking this will take you to a simplified version of the page without the user avatars, joined date, total posts, etc. It also does not display the menus or show the background color or forum topic page shading. Just perfect for printing! Each post in the thread is numbered and all the post graphics show up just like in the forum. There is a "Print" button at the top and bottom of the page.

Note that a long topic thread like Rudy's 1973 Blue Bird is going to generate a lot of printer use. No single forum topic page will fit on a single sheet of paper, so the printer is going to make page breaks, which increases the total number of printed pages.

Play around with it. I just got it installed and configured, there might still be some bugs. Let me know if you experience anything too bizarre.

Let it never be said that we don't aim to please around here.

[Rudy]

Wow Sharkey, I'll try it out. I don't intend on printing this stuff myself. I just want to load it to a disc and then go to Kinkos with it. Thanks, Rudy

[Sharkey]

Well, I think you'l find that in order to take the printer version of the topics to a printers to be printed, you'll need to save the print output to a file. This is most commonly done by saving to a .PDF file, whcih requires - wait for it -, more software! Adobe Distiller is what would usually be used.

Another method might be to install some Encapsulated PostScript drivers to save to a .eps file. This has never worked all that well for me, I always found that my old slow computers would choke on stuff like that, but you would be well off to try. You probably need to search the 'net for some suitable Post Script drives before you try and install.

A free alternative to Adobe Distiller / Acrobat woud be "GS View" from Ghostgum software:

http://www.ghostgum.com.au/

I've used this product before to open/print/select/copy protected PDF files that wouldn't display in Acrobat due to security settings (naughty me...)

Finally, you might find that Kinko's (or maybe a more down-to-earth locally-owned print shop) might have internet-ready computer that you could pull the pages up on and allow them to save the printer-friendly view to file or send it directly to their printer ??