Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program.

[Currie]

Hello Trish & Lesley,

I prefer the images to the pdf’s. If you have a lot of them it’s easier to flick through them with an image viewer, paste them into documents and all sorts of other things. I give the images a name which includes enough info to identify where it’s from e.g. “Irvine William SMH 27-01-1885 Article” or something like that.

When right clicking the images to save them, you have to remember that they are in segments and sometimes you may be getting only half of what you want. Once downloaded I make any necessary joins and crop the image. I copy the text as well and it usually helps when I do the transcription. It's a long slow process if you’re after a lot of stuff.

Using Irfanview you can actually add the file name of the image to the image. This can be done as a batch of hundreds if necessary but it’s best to get it sorted out using just a few. The default for Irfanview is that it only changes a copy of the image so you shouldn’t get into trouble. I haven’t tried doing that for a while but I have quite a lot to do now. Here’s a very rough description of the process using the settings I last used.

First make a new folder in the folder containing the images, that’s for the output. Click on the Irfanview file menu – Batch conversion. Put the files you want to work on into the top ‘look in’ window then add all or some of them to the bottom window, they’ll be the ones to get their name added. Next put your empty output folder into the ‘look in’ window.

On the left side it’ll be a batch conversion, specify the format, click the ‘use look in directory’ button, tick the ‘use advanced options’ box and click the advanced button next to it. On the next box that pops up you’re going to change canvas size and add overlay text. Make sure none of the other boxes are ticked.

In the canvas size settings add say 50 pixels to the top of the image border. In the overlay text settings try X Coord 5, 450 and Y Coord 7, 100. (that sets the position of the text on the image, i.e. the size and position of the text box), click start at left top corner, in the text area type $N (that’s file name without extension – click help for codes), tick for transparent text, choose the font, say Times NR 10, black, choose text alignment left. OK your way back to where you started and click the big ‘Start Batch’ button.

Experiment on a few till you get what you want and then process the full batch and it’ll do hundreds in minutes. You’ll see that the original files will be unaltered so just keep plugging away till you get it right and trash all the mistakes.

Hope that makes sense,
Alan

[trish1]

I'm sure it will make sense when I study it Alan - same as studying the info from Lesley on Ballingalls - it is as well one likes this pastime - for it shall never finish.

One of my English families came out here under the Australian Agricultural Company immigration scheme 1849/50 - the hits for that company in the naa newspapers are in their 1000s - that was when I started looking for a better way to download the images. I never fully understood the scheme as the company also employed convicts and brought staff out from England, but my guy was a free settler with his own land & the newspaper articles explained very well what the company offered. I gather their archives are at the ANU and are very detailed.

I also like image files for ease of access & use irfanview most of the time

Thank you for your help & information - always appreciated

Trish