Digitizing & Importing paper records

[Daniel Slosberg]

Re: Digitizing & Importing paper records

I'll give Preview a go at reducing pdf file sizes....

For what it's worth, I converted the original 168 KB .jpg...

http://www.fiddlingwithhistory.com/attic/family.jpg

...to a .pdf via both GraphicConverter and Preview. The converted file size was 364 KB both times.

-Daniel

[Bob White]

Re: Digitizing & Importing paper records

Duh! Where was my brain the last few days? OK, don't answer that. First, you need to know that graphics are stored as lots of alphanumeric code that is reassembled for your viewing whenever you call it up.

It's simple. The nature of jpg, png, etc, is to compress. Pretend that it's a TV; a TV works by scanning horizontally X number times per second. It replaces each pixel with whatever the new pixel should be. No compression.

Freeze it... and code it for storage. A PDF doesn't compress. As it scans across, it would store like: blue,blue,blue,blue, red,red,red,red,white,white,white,white,white,whit e,,etc.. e.g. a full list of pixels sequentially.

One of the other formats: they compress. The code for the above is now blue4,red3,white6, etc....

While this is not technically how it works, it is the way I've seen several Photoshop teachers explain compression to average users. It gets the idea across that one white with a quantity takes up much less space than six whites. (In the "example" 30 bytes vs. 6 bytes.)

To sum it up, the PDF format doesn't compress, so it's naturally going to be larger.

[Gato]

Re: Digitizing & Importing paper records

Responding to Ken (Ozanne) and Bob (White): interesting and useful discussion of the uses of PDF for genealogical purposes. PDF file format has such value for preserving the original appearance of documents (paper records) that it has been very widely accepted for that purpose - for example, by national libraries and archives - since the 1990s. That in itself is a tip to Reunion users who have a similar interest to libraries and archives in the longterm archival viability of digitized records. PDF is a good way to go.

Many applications which Reunion users would commonly use as "helper applications", such as Microsoft Word, and browsers and email clients, now can "save as" PDF format. Many apps also open and read the format.

Although there are many good options for creating and reading PDFs, I know of only one fully capable option for editing the format - as indicated by Ken, Adobe's Acrobat Pro. Not surprising, really, since Adobe originated the PDF format and has developed and supported it well over decades. The Mac OS X built-in Preview app is excellent, but it is basically an alternative to the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, with limited file creation/editing features.

Adobe Acrobat Pro has superior features for reducing PDF file size, for instance. It integrates well with most scanners, like my Epson V700. Its built-in optical character recognition is highly accurate in reading clear originals (print, not handwriting), for the purpose of embedding searchable text with the document image. I'll join Ken in recommending Acrobat Pro to fellow Reunionists making extensive use of PDF for digitizing records.

Cheers,

Gato

Bob,
Acrobat reader is free in Australia. I use Acrobat Pro.

I tried to convert a file using Preview. It converted only the first of 1000+ images and blew that one up from 2MB to 11.4MB. This is the worst bloat I have seen but it is the same problem that led me to use acrobat in the first place. Not to mention the failure to do what I wanted.

But thanks for the thought.

[Gato]

Re: Digitizing & Importing paper records

Hello Daniel. I came into this discussion on a tangent about PDF editing and reading, without referring to your originating post.

I agree with those responders who have suggested that in the instance you outline, you probably face a bit of enjoyable sifting of information, and manual entry.

Some suggestions:

1. Where you find among those 40 pages of family records original certificates, such as birth, death and marriage registration, you should scan and save them as digital files to be attached in Reunion Multimedia. Each such certificate also should have a Reunion Source entry, to be linked to the BDM data fields of relevant family members.

2. Similar advice as in 1. for any letters, memoirs, or any other item that stands alone as a record. If the "40 pages of family records" are a work of authorship, such as a family history narrative, I'd recommend digitizing the whole in Adobe Acrobat Pro, and giving it a single source entry. This would ensure that any information you draw from it in your Reunion family file is correctly attributed.

3. Optical character recognition software, including the embedded OCR features of Adobe Acrobat Pro, would accurately read clearly printed text in the documents, and possibly save you some re-typing.

4. The formatting of your sample page suggests that your late cousin had already started compiling genealogical information in another application. Others might recognize the format (PAF?). If so, it certainly would be useful to locate your late cousin's computer file, and try to convert it to GEDCOM and import it, initially to a blank temporary Reunion file to avoid duplicating or corrupting your main data. You would then review the data in the temporary Reunion file, clean up/correct as necessary, and select individual records for import to your main family file.

5. Most important of all - try to locate any of the original documents, photos and records which your late cousin used as sources to compile the genealogy. There may be information not entered in your cousin's genealogy as it stands. Also, while your cousin's genealogical file is a valuable secondary source, original records have the highest status as primary sources.

Cheers,

Gato

I just received about 40 pages of family records and am wondering if anyone has a simple and quick way to digitize them and import them into Reunion.

Here's a sample page: http://www.fiddlingwithhistory.com/attic/family.jpg

I'm trying to avoid retyping the data. The cousin who compiled the data passed away and her son doesn't know if an electronic version exists anywhere.

I'd greatly appreciate any thoughts.

-Daniel

[Allsop]

Re: Digitizing & Importing paper records

Daniel,
I usually photograph the document, convert to a .pdf file (I use acrobat but there are cheaper programs) and save that as an e book. It might suit you to store same in multimedia, but I use such things as sources, partly because I have some 300 GB of such. Ideally I would have all my sources stored on my computer.

Save yourself some money, you already have the ability on Mac to convert an image to pdf. It is a workflow in Automator and it is the simplest thing to use.

Open Automator in Applications,
you will get fig 1
Click on PDFs in left hand column & then drag 'PDF to Images in second column to the work area.
Save to a convenient place and that's it.
All you have to do now is drag & drop the image you want to convert to PDF onto the saved application and hey presto you will have a pdf of the document. Good luck.

[martha]

Re: Digitizing & Importing paper records

Although there are many good options for creating and reading PDFs, I know of only one fully capable option for editing the format - as indicated by Ken, Adobe's Acrobat Pro.

Gato

In case you are unfamiliar with it, Skim [http://skim-app.sourceforge.net] can edit, highlight and in general work with .pdf files. I use it all the time and find it has more bells and whistles than I need. I have used it gratefully for years. Long newspaper articles that mention a family member only once or twice can be tweaked to show up the that member's name so one doesn't have to reread pages and pages of material to get to the quick of the matter. It works with any scan or .pdf.

Martha

[Bob White]

Re: Digitizing & Importing paper records

Or, for an in between price, look at PDFPen Pro. I don't have it myself but seeing a friend use it, it looks like it would meet the needs being discussed here and it runs an even $100. (http://www.smilesoftware.com/PDFpenPro/index.html)

[kmgenealogy]

Re: Digitizing & Importing paper records

Or, for an in between price, look at PDFPen Pro. I don't have it myself but seeing a friend use it, it looks like it would meet the needs being discussed here and it runs an even $100. (http://www.smilesoftware.com/PDFpenPro/index.html)

I have had PDFPenPro for several years and really like the program-just upgraded to 6.0. Last week I scanned over 60 typewritten pages of family memories that a cousin gave me. During each scan I was able to get a PDF document and do an OCR and get a separate OCR'd PDF. The OCR wasn't the best, but the typed docs were very light. The important part is that I was able to get a good PDF of each one. Their less expensive PDFPen ($59.95) will also do the PDFs and OCR. Check them both out at http://smilesoftware.com. You can buy either in the Mac App Store.

I am using transcriptions of the typed memories, using the OCR'd PDFs, to do a blog of my family's memories of my grandfather, grandmother & their children.

You are welcome to take a look at what I've done so far. My first time at doing a blog.
www.stroopfamily.blogspot.com.

[Frank Zwolinski]

Re: Digitizing & Importing paper records

When I receive information like this from various family sources they are generally hand written, but once in a while they might be typed. If I verify the information (sometimes by trust, depending on source) I enter the data and then I scan the received document and use it as the "source" with a digital copy in the multimedia section for that source number.

Filing documents in paper is getting to be a great chore these days not to mention the space needed to keep them all, but that is life, I guess! Having a digital copy attached to the source number and thus to each piece of information cited in my Family File, seems to make comparing information a little easier. Also, when I produce a "Web Project" for my family, they get the opportunity to "see" the "actual" source in addition to just the information I provide about that source.

Just my take on all this, Happy to hear what others think/do,
Frank