Trainz Manual without coloured background?
- Thread starter Johnk
- Start date
Just set your printer to print black and white....
No, I don't think he was joking. You asked about a text file of the manual to avoid using gallons of colored ink. A text file won't give you the colored photos. I don't know of a manual out there that's going to give you just the text with the colored photos and not get the background and other images.
Please avoid reading between the lines. With thirty years behind me as a typesetter and printer, I could easily add the photos to a text file which I could then repaginate, and make the entire manual minus the background images available to anyone who wants them. Sourdough's solution if you bother to try, will still print the background which wouldn't look too pleasant in black and white. That's what I'm trying to avoid, but I didn't think I had to spell it out.
Hi John,
I took a look at the files, but unfortunately I don't think this could be done unless you can open the files in a PDF editor. Canvas, Adobe Acrobat (Not the reader), or perhaps Adobe Illustrator will allow you to edit the file and remove the background.
From another former typesetter (Varityper user for 8 years) and former desktop publisher. I now work for a manufacturer of digital half-tone proofing equipment.
John
That sometimes works, but if the text is embedded into the pictures, then it can't be extracted. The only way then is to use some kind of acrobat file editor.
John
JCitron (John) I had a Varityper way back around 1980. Eight Inch Floppies and about 64 kb memory or less. It cost $11,000 second hand, sold it for scrap about four years later.
Mike10 and John again. Thanks, but I don't have high hopes. I printed the file to a paperless printer and each page is a JPG. I'll play with the colour settings to see if I can wash out the background.
This problem abounds on the Internet. Too many PDF publications have ink hungry backgrounds, headers and footers. I printed one 200 page manual recently and it cost me $70 in ink!
Mike10 and John again. Thanks, but I don't have high hopes. I printed the file to a paperless printer and each page is a JPG. I'll play with the colour settings to see if I can wash out the background.
This problem abounds on the Internet. Too many PDF publications have ink hungry backgrounds, headers and footers. I printed one 200 page manual recently and it cost me $70 in ink!
Zwabberaar
There can be only One!
You could "copy" the text by writing it yourself in a simple text document. Will take some time but saves you the ink. Added benefit is that you will have read the entire text at least once.
Another couple of possible ideas:
Copy and paste the vital bits into a word processor program, then add your own comments if you wish.
If you've got a laptop handy, use that to display the manual while you're working and never print it out on paper. Being in electronic form has the advantage of being able to search rapidly.
John
Copy and paste the vital bits into a word processor program, then add your own comments if you wish.
If you've got a laptop handy, use that to display the manual while you're working and never print it out on paper. Being in electronic form has the advantage of being able to search rapidly.
John
I have an optical character reader, scanner, two monitors and all the latest technology to do these things but I asked a specific question and hoped I'd receive a direct responce rather than endless alternatives, all of which I'd considered and abandoned long ago. Thanks anyway, but please don't bother responding unless you have the item(s) I requested. Ta.
John - I had the Epics 20/20 that also had 8" floppy disks. We also had a choice between a single 10 mb Winchester drive and a tape drive, or two 20 mb hard drives. I chose the 2 hard drives. The Epics had quite a bit more memory, but it cost 5 times that. When the lease was up 5 years later 1993, the bank didn't even want it and Varityper was no longer in business.
Anyway, you have my sympathy. I know with HTML pages, you can print the pages without backgrounds, but it's impossible with Acrobat files unless they can be edited and the background remvoved. At $70 in ink that's a lot of money! This is how they make the money on the printers. The hardware is the least cost in the picture. It's the consumables that bring in the profits. They're following the old Polaroid business model. Hopefully they don't follow it too closely because look what happened to Polaroid.
John
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JCitron,
Actually Polaroid got the idea from Shick or Gillette (don't remember who was first). With the advent of the safety razor, they decided to give away the razor and sell the blades. Seems to work for them. I wonder when printers will follow the advent of the disposable razor.
Actually Polaroid got the idea from Shick or Gillette (don't remember who was first). With the advent of the safety razor, they decided to give away the razor and sell the blades. Seems to work for them. I wonder when printers will follow the advent of the disposable razor.
They got the idea from Gillette. They just about gave away the razor and sold the blades seperately. The subject comes up all the time at work, since my company was once a Polaroid division.
HP, Epson and Lexmark already do that. They sell the hardware for next to nothing, but the cartridges cost big bucks. To add insult to injury, they put some kind of chip in the cartridge electronic interface so if the date is passed a certain time, the printer won't print so you're forced to go out any buy another. This is a problem that I had so I went to a laser printer. I print very little but when I do I really need the printer. So now I have a retired from work HP Laserjet 4si Duplex that allows me to print many pages on both sides when I need it.
JohnK, I'm sorry to hear that you haven't made progress. I'll ask around work and see what can be done.
John
which manual are we talking here? I know the 06 one came in pdf format and book format (depending on which version of 06 you got) and if I recall the background images were greyscale.
come to think of it most game manuals come with background images and many colors.
peter
come to think of it most game manuals come with background images and many colors.
peter
This might be useful.
John,
I talked with my brother, who is also in the graphics industry. He told me about this, which he uses all the time.
PDF Text extractor.
http://www.a-pdf.com/text/
This is a text extractor that pulls the text from PDF files.
It's free but you need to register it.
John
John,
I talked with my brother, who is also in the graphics industry. He told me about this, which he uses all the time.
PDF Text extractor.
http://www.a-pdf.com/text/
This is a text extractor that pulls the text from PDF files.
It's free but you need to register it.
John
Thanks guys and thanks to John JCitron for a solution. I actually solved the riddle myself and a text file can be extracted with a standard installation of Adobe Reader. I didn't notice at first, but when you open the manual to read it, Adobe reader actually opens inside a HTML page that strips all Adobe's functions from the File Menu. You have to copy the manual (via the File menu) to an Adobe file, which you can then open and read using Adobe. This brings back ALL Adobe's functions ijncluding:
"Copy to a Text File". This gives you a raw unformatted text file you can read in Notepad.
"Copy File to Clip Board". You can then paste into a word processor and get all the correct font sizes, pagination etc. All you have to do is insert the photos.
Why bother with this you may ask? Well the 300 page plus PDF manual contains much more material (including an excellet Surveyor demo) than the printed manual. It's difficult to read the PDF manual and follow the tasks on the same screen so I and others will probably like to print it out. There are two problems there:
1. The manual contains a lot of unnecessary colour which will eat up a lot of expensive ink.
2. The PDF file was designed to read on screen, not as a printed document. The pages are paginated incorrectly (Printer's jargon) so you'll end up either with a massive A4 landscape book with two ( or 4) printed pages to the sheet, or a can of worms.
If I get around to it, my version will be a neat A5 book that will fit neatly into a standard A5 D Ring binder. It will be small enough to fit on your desk as you do the exercises.
Whether I do it depends on my enthusiasm, but I think i'll give it a bash. It's difficult for me to offer much else to the community at this time.
Thanks to all who answered, and once again thanks to John C.
P.S. I saw a laser printer advertised the other day for AU $90. The replacement cartridges were $200.
I had a Canon copier that boasted 4,000 copies at 15% coverage from a cartridge. Thats about 80% text and 20% solids. I only copied text so my coverage was down to 5-10%. The machine would still only allow me to do 4,000 copies even though the cartridge was half full. It didn't take long to find the little counter cog which I quickly disposed of. From then on I was getting up to 10,000 copies from a cartridge!
"Copy to a Text File". This gives you a raw unformatted text file you can read in Notepad.
"Copy File to Clip Board". You can then paste into a word processor and get all the correct font sizes, pagination etc. All you have to do is insert the photos.
Why bother with this you may ask? Well the 300 page plus PDF manual contains much more material (including an excellet Surveyor demo) than the printed manual. It's difficult to read the PDF manual and follow the tasks on the same screen so I and others will probably like to print it out. There are two problems there:
1. The manual contains a lot of unnecessary colour which will eat up a lot of expensive ink.
2. The PDF file was designed to read on screen, not as a printed document. The pages are paginated incorrectly (Printer's jargon) so you'll end up either with a massive A4 landscape book with two ( or 4) printed pages to the sheet, or a can of worms.
If I get around to it, my version will be a neat A5 book that will fit neatly into a standard A5 D Ring binder. It will be small enough to fit on your desk as you do the exercises.
Whether I do it depends on my enthusiasm, but I think i'll give it a bash. It's difficult for me to offer much else to the community at this time.
Thanks to all who answered, and once again thanks to John C.
P.S. I saw a laser printer advertised the other day for AU $90. The replacement cartridges were $200.
I had a Canon copier that boasted 4,000 copies at 15% coverage from a cartridge. Thats about 80% text and 20% solids. I only copied text so my coverage was down to 5-10%. The machine would still only allow me to do 4,000 copies even though the cartridge was half full. It didn't take long to find the little counter cog which I quickly disposed of. From then on I was getting up to 10,000 copies from a cartridge!
These printer mfg's have certainly figured out where the money is. The only what that I had been able to save any money on the colored ink was to buy a printer that has a separate cartridge for each color. At least when one color runs out, I can replace that cartridge without having to waste the unused ink for the other colors.
I'm glad you found your solution.
I'm glad you found your solution.