TSB Organization, Presentation, etc

[Steve83]

UPDATE: From what I can tell, the Google Drive is the only "cloud drive" that provides the option of "Anyone on the internet can find and view" a file. I've searched high and low on both OneDrive and Drop Box, and the best they provide is "Anyone with the link can view" the document.

Apparently Google has decided that it is not worth their while to index a document that is only available via a link. At least that's what the precious little I've been able to find on the subject suggests. And, if that's true then none of our documents on the website will be found - with the exception of Section 2: Axles & Frames, Suspension & Steering in the 1983 Dealer Facts Book, which as of last night is now available to anyone on the internet. And, Google has been asked to index it.

As for when it might be found, all I've read says it will take anywhere from 4 days to 4 weeks. As of this writing it hasn't yet been found, but I'll keep checking. Meanwhile I'm cleaning up the index spreadsheet, hoping to have it ready when/if Google finds Section 2.

But, that brings me to another question for y'all: How to present the spreadsheet?

By that I mean whether to provide it in one long spreadsheet, although divided into the previously-mentioned categories, or to break it up into smaller sheets by category and placing each of those on a tab. The advantage of breaking it up is that it will load faster since you are only looking at a single tab at a time. The disadvantage is that you can only find things on that tab.

I lean to having one long spreadsheet since you can then search the whole thing in one go. But, what do you think?

All together seems like the only way to do it - otherwise, it seems like many TSBs &/or applicable vehicles won't show up.

I haven't been able to find my box of books yet.

[Gary Lewis]

All together seems like the only way to do it - otherwise, it seems like many TSBs &/or applicable vehicles won't show up.

I haven't been able to find my box of books yet.

Thanks. The more I think about it the more I realize it has to be one complete spreadsheet. I've already split some out, but they are easy enough to put back.

Now if Google will just find that file....

Hope you find your books. But there's no huge hurry as this is going to be a long process.

I would say you can ship them to me and I'll scan them, but you probably wouldn't like my process. The pages are perforated, so I remove the pages I want as that makes scanning them so much easier and cleaner. And, since they are punched for a 3-ring binder, I put them in a binder with the page back in the right spot.

I'm sure some would think that heresy, but I'm not a collector of literature for literature's sake. If I can't share it what's the use?

 

[Steve83]

Thanks. The more I think about it the more I realize it has to be one complete spreadsheet. I've already split some out, but they are easy enough to put back.

Now if Google will just find that file....

Hope you find your books. But there's no huge hurry as this is going to be a long process.

I would say you can ship them to me and I'll scan them, but you probably wouldn't like my process. The pages are perforated, so I remove the pages I want as that makes scanning them so much easier and cleaner. And, since they are punched for a 3-ring binder, I put them in a binder with the page back in the right spot.

I'm sure some would think that heresy, but I'm not a collector of literature for literature's sake. If I can't share it what's the use?

I don't see paper books as sacred - I'd rather digitize everything, so I'm planning on unbinding many of these for scanning. But I hate scanning text as an image - I prefer to OCR everything so it's raw text, and then format it so it looks similar to the book, but is easy for anyone to change at any time. IDK enough about PDFs to like them yet; I tend toward DOCs & TXTs.

In reading your explanation above, I'm not sure I follow your logic. BUT I MIGHT JUST NOT UNDERSTAND THE TERMINOLOGY, so this could all be moot...

The way you worded it, I get the impression that you misinterpreted Google's "rule" about availability. You seem to interpret it as direct access on the page in-question. But my interpretation (based ONLY on your previous post - I know NOTHING about Google's process, or how web pages are built) is that the document simply has to be public SOMEWHERE. So if I embed a document here that's hosted on the IRS website (which is available to the public), it would still get indexed. But if I embed a document on my Google Drive that requires a password and I post the password here for people to use, it would NOT be indexed because Google's bot (or whatever the term is) couldn't get into the document without the password to index it. And it's not smart enough to understand that I posted the password - it would just index the password without recognizing that's what it's for.

But that could be entirely RONG!

I found my box of books, and did the first scan with my new Epson ET-2750. I thought it had an option to OCR, but the only one was searchable PDF, so that's what this is:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=177-XyGTCOPfFKQN0cLlGZpN57rWWg4N9

Tell me if that works. It's from TSB 84-1A "1984 Model Special Specifications Issue Update" Jan.3, 1984.

[Gary Lewis]

I don't see paper books as sacred - I'd rather digitize everything, so I'm planning on unbinding many of these for scanning. But I hate scanning text as an image - I prefer to OCR everything so it's raw text, and then format it so it looks similar to the book, but is easy for anyone to change at any time. IDK enough about PDFs to like them yet; I tend toward DOCs & TXTs.

In reading your explanation above, I'm not sure I follow your logic. BUT I MIGHT JUST NOT UNDERSTAND THE TERMINOLOGY, so this could all be moot...

The way you worded it, I get the impression that you misinterpreted Google's "rule" about availability. You seem to interpret it as direct access on the page in-question. But my interpretation (based ONLY on your previous post - I know NOTHING about Google's process, or how web pages are built) is that the document simply has to be public SOMEWHERE. So if I embed a document here that's hosted on the IRS website (which is available to the public), it would still get indexed. But if I embed a document on my Google Drive that requires a password and I post the password here for people to use, it would NOT be indexed because Google's bot (or whatever the term is) couldn't get into the document without the password to index it. And it's not smart enough to understand that I posted the password - it would just index the password without recognizing that's what it's for.

But that could be entirely RONG!

I found my box of books, and did the first scan with my new Epson ET-2750. I thought it had an option to OCR, but the only one was searchable PDF, so that's what this is:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=177-XyGTCOPfFKQN0cLlGZpN57rWWg4N9

Tell me if that works. It's from TSB 84-1A "1984 Model Special Specifications Issue Update" Jan.3, 1984.

Seems like we are on the same page regarding publications.

As for the logic, let me do more research today - while I watch parades and football games - and I'll get back on how I think it works. Hmmm, I wonder if my book on Search Engine Optimization has anything to say about it?

On the file, it does work. It is remarkably crisp, and it is a very small size - 110kb. But, while it is searchable, not everything on it can be found. For example, I can find 8 instances of "set", including one in the upper left of the label itself. But I can't find E4AE or AGG, which are in the lower left of the label. And, while it finds "air" and "purge", it doesn't highlight them at the right place.

Which leads me to tell you what very little know about pdf's like this one - there are at least two layers. One layer is what you see, which in this case is a picture of, among other things, words. And another layer includes the actual words - in their supposed position on the page. But, sometimes the OCR engine puts the word in the wrong position, like "air" and "purge".

Or, it gives you the wrong word. Or, as in this case, it sometimes gives you no words. To find out what it did OCR you can try to select some words. For instance, try to select the whole of the label itself and you'll see that it doesn't highlight all of the words, so it skipped some. And then, highlight a word or two and copy it to the clipboard and then paste them somewhere. I did that to "E4AE 9C485" and found that it OCR'd them to "E4AA GgcG485", which explains why it couldn't find "E4AE".

Anyway, I'll re-OCR that file and see if my program finds more words and/or corrects some of the errors. Perhaps we can do a two-step on them successfully.

[Gary Lewis]

Seems like we are on the same page regarding publications.

As for the logic, let me do more research today - while I watch parades and football games - and I'll get back on how I think it works. Hmmm, I wonder if my book on Search Engine Optimization has anything to say about it?

On the file, it does work. It is remarkably crisp, and it is a very small size - 110kb. But, while it is searchable, not everything on it can be found. For example, I can find 8 instances of "set", including one in the upper left of the label itself. But I can't find E4AE or AGG, which are in the lower left of the label. And, while it finds "air" and "purge", it doesn't highlight them at the right place.

Which leads me to tell you what very little know about pdf's like this one - there are at least two layers. One layer is what you see, which in this case is a picture of, among other things, words. And another layer includes the actual words - in their supposed position on the page. But, sometimes the OCR engine puts the word in the wrong position, like "air" and "purge".

Or, it gives you the wrong word. Or, as in this case, it sometimes gives you no words. To find out what it did OCR you can try to select some words. For instance, try to select the whole of the label itself and you'll see that it doesn't highlight all of the words, so it skipped some. And then, highlight a word or two and copy it to the clipboard and then paste them somewhere. I did that to "E4AE 9C485" and found that it OCR'd them to "E4AA GgcG485", which explains why it couldn't find "E4AE".

Anyway, I'll re-OCR that file and see if my program finds more words and/or corrects some of the errors. Perhaps we can do a two-step on them successfully.

I've re-OCR'd the file and my OCR app did find lots of things that hadn't been previously found. Here's a screen shot of some of what it found - I'd already processed several of them.

You can see what it found by the red rectangles, each one being something it questioned. And the one filled in with green, "HEX", is the one it was questioning at the time. It asked if I wanted to accept what it thought it should be, or if I wanted to correct it, or if it wasn't even supposed to be text. It is tedious, but doable.

And, I put the file up on the website here: TSB's/CALIBRATION: 4-53F-R00.

Now to figure out about Google....

[Steve83]

Seems like we are on the same page regarding publications.

As for the logic, let me do more research today - while I watch parades and football games - and I'll get back on how I think it works. Hmmm, I wonder if my book on Search Engine Optimization has anything to say about it?

On the file, it does work. It is remarkably crisp, and it is a very small size - 110kb. But, while it is searchable, not everything on it can be found. For example, I can find 8 instances of "set", including one in the upper left of the label itself. But I can't find E4AE or AGG, which are in the lower left of the label. And, while it finds "air" and "purge", it doesn't highlight them at the right place.

Which leads me to tell you what very little know about pdf's like this one - there are at least two layers. One layer is what you see, which in this case is a picture of, among other things, words. And another layer includes the actual words - in their supposed position on the page. But, sometimes the OCR engine puts the word in the wrong position, like "air" and "purge".

Or, it gives you the wrong word. Or, as in this case, it sometimes gives you no words. To find out what it did OCR you can try to select some words. For instance, try to select the whole of the label itself and you'll see that it doesn't highlight all of the words, so it skipped some. And then, highlight a word or two and copy it to the clipboard and then paste them somewhere. I did that to "E4AE 9C485" and found that it OCR'd them to "E4AA GgcG485", which explains why it couldn't find "E4AE".

Anyway, I'll re-OCR that file and see if my program finds more words and/or corrects some of the errors. Perhaps we can do a two-step on them successfully.

Yeah, I tried searching a few words & text strings, and they worked. I didn't try selecting the whole document to check for holes - good tip. This is the first time I've used this scanner, and the first time I've used searchable PDFs, so I haven't found the OCR settings, or how to edit the OCR'ed layer yet. But I'll try to dig them up so you don't have to re-do what I'm doing. That first page's scan settings were: 600dpi; deskew; text enhancement sensitivity 0, threshold 0, noise reduction 1, reduce wrinkle. I haven't found the HELP explanation of what the text settings do.

...and to reduce me re-doing what you're doing, I have these books:

https://supermotors.net/getfile/1143826/thumbnail/80smanualstsbs.jpg

The massive TSB binder includes:

83-1

83-2

83-3

83-4

83-5

83-5a "Special... 1983¼ Escort, Lynx, EXP, & LN7 Updated Service Information"

83-6

83-7

83-8

83-8A "Special! Front & Rear Spring Usage"

83-9

83-10

83-11A "Special Specifications Issue Update" (VECI labels)

83-11

83-12

83-13

83-14

83-15

83-16

83-17

83-18

83-23

83-24

83-25

84-1A "Special Specifications Issue Update" (VECI labels including that one)

84-1

84-2

84-3

84-7A "Special Specifications Issue Update" (VECI labels)

84-12

84-13A-1

84-14

84-15

84-16

84-17

84-18

84-19

84-20

84-21

84-22

84-23

84-24

84-25

84-26

Have you already scanned any of them? I've picked a few TSBs out of a few of those books that interest me. These were scanned with the same settings, except 400dpi:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=18eMI8GebF3VZQR0qDUWyksvAgIJt8JhO

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1n73yT7JDE1ZyPAqBoCvjTCngl7u8fKN3

What OCR app do you use, and what PDF editor?

[Gary Lewis]

Yeah, I tried searching a few words & text strings, and they worked. I didn't try selecting the whole document to check for holes - good tip. This is the first time I've used this scanner, and the first time I've used searchable PDFs, so I haven't found the OCR settings, or how to edit the OCR'ed layer yet. But I'll try to dig them up so you don't have to re-do what I'm doing. That first page's scan settings were: 600dpi; deskew; text enhancement sensitivity 0, threshold 0, noise reduction 1, reduce wrinkle. I haven't found the HELP explanation of what the text settings do.

...and to reduce me re-doing what you're doing, I have these books:

The massive TSB binder includes:

83-1 HAVE

83-2 HAVE

83-3 HAVE

83-4 HAVE

83-5 HAVE

83-5a "Special... 1983¼ Escort, Lynx, EXP, & LN7 Updated Service Information" HAVE

83-6 HAVE

83-7 HAVE

83-8 HAVE

83-8A Special! Front and Rear Spring Usage HAVE

83-9 I DO NOT HAVE THIS ONE

83-10 HAVE

83-11A "Special Specifications Issue Update" (VECI labels) HAVE

Have you already scanned any of them? I've picked a few TSBs out of a few of those books that interest me. These were scanned with the same settings, except 400dpi:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=18eMI8GebF3VZQR0qDUWyksvAgIJt8JhO

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1n73yT7JDE1ZyPAqBoCvjTCngl7u8fKN3

What OCR app do you use, and what PDF editor?

I've noted which ones I have, but past 83-11A I don't have any. And I haven't scanned any of those as I started with the late '79 ones.

As for your new files, I OCR'd them and found something like 3 questionable things in one and 11 in the other. So that was very easy to do. Bring them on!

I'll try to get those, and any others you send, on the site in a bit. But, there needs to be some organization as things are getting really busy. So I need to think about that for a bit.

As for my OCR and pdf editor, I use FoxIt PhantomPDF. It certainly isn't perfect, and crashes every once in a while. But it did better in sample OCR's that I did than did Adobe's pdf editor. And it is a lot less expensive.

 

[Steve83]

Yeah, I tried searching a few words & text strings, and they worked. I didn't try selecting the whole document to check for holes - good tip. This is the first time I've used this scanner, and the first time I've used searchable PDFs, so I haven't found the OCR settings, or how to edit the OCR'ed layer yet. But I'll try to dig them up so you don't have to re-do what I'm doing. That first page's scan settings were: 600dpi; deskew; text enhancement sensitivity 0, threshold 0, noise reduction 1, reduce wrinkle. I haven't found the HELP explanation of what the text settings do.

...and to reduce me re-doing what you're doing, I have these books:

The massive TSB binder includes:

83-1 HAVE

83-2 HAVE

83-3 HAVE

83-4 HAVE

83-5 HAVE

83-5a "Special... 1983¼ Escort, Lynx, EXP, & LN7 Updated Service Information" HAVE

83-6 HAVE

83-7 HAVE

83-8 HAVE

83-8A Special! Front and Rear Spring Usage HAVE

83-9 I DO NOT HAVE THIS ONE

83-10 HAVE

83-11A "Special Specifications Issue Update" (VECI labels) HAVE

Have you already scanned any of them? I've picked a few TSBs out of a few of those books that interest me. These were scanned with the same settings, except 400dpi:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=18eMI8GebF3VZQR0qDUWyksvAgIJt8JhO

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1n73yT7JDE1ZyPAqBoCvjTCngl7u8fKN3

What OCR app do you use, and what PDF editor?

I've noted which ones I have, but past 83-11A I don't have any. And I haven't scanned any of those as I started with the late '79 ones.

As for your new files, I OCR'd them and found something like 3 questionable things in one and 11 in the other. So that was very easy to do. Bring them on!

I'll try to get those, and any others you send, on the site in a bit. But, there needs to be some organization as things are getting really busy. So I need to think about that for a bit.

As for my OCR and pdf editor, I use FoxIt PhantomPDF. It certainly isn't perfect, and crashes every once in a while. But it did better in sample OCR's that I did than did Adobe's pdf editor. And it is a lot less expensive.

I'm not ready to buy more OCR software when I have a really-good one that I like (it's just old & I haven't installed it on this new machine); but I'll look into that PDF editor. I've figured out how to make multi-page PDFs now, but not with different-shaped selection areas. And I can't edit the OCR'ed text with this software - only adjust its sensitivities.

Is it easier for you if I link each file as I upload them? You may already have these:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_URkpn6C3vEtoTitfmOkvZAcdF-9tBEU

https://drive.google.com/open?id=13PNK-HwS-9QemhgQTXW040ZKU4CQdZ0Q

Or just the whole folder, and let you check for new ones when you feel like it?

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1N0PiRrlJpHvEOftoPpX_N2hIqGjv2MRz

Where you marked books with "HAVE" - does that mean you've already OCR'ed & uploaded its TSBs; or just that you have the book, but still need the TSBs scanned? Are you trying to get ALL the TSBs from each book, or only those relevant to these trucks? There are some (like 83-03-24 "NP208 Range Fork & Nylon Annulus Hub Wear") that apply to these trucks, but aren't relevant now since they deal with things that, if they haven't happened by now on someone's truck, never will. So I didn't plan to scan those few. What's your opinion?

If that's your plan, I'd scan each book's contents pages (for the books you don't have) so we can decide which TSBs you want. Here's 83-09:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AlpxxZpR6JnPdCYkYohDNVw4YzSc1MFp

[Gary Lewis]

I'm not ready to buy more OCR software when I have a really-good one that I like (it's just old & I haven't installed it on this new machine); but I'll look into that PDF editor. I've figured out how to make multi-page PDFs now, but not with different-shaped selection areas. And I can't edit the OCR'ed text with this software - only adjust its sensitivities.

Is it easier for you if I link each file as I upload them? You may already have these:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_URkpn6C3vEtoTitfmOkvZAcdF-9tBEU

https://drive.google.com/open?id=13PNK-HwS-9QemhgQTXW040ZKU4CQdZ0Q

Or just the whole folder, and let you check for new ones when you feel like it?

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1N0PiRrlJpHvEOftoPpX_N2hIqGjv2MRz

Where you marked books with "HAVE" - does that mean you've already OCR'ed & uploaded its TSBs; or just that you have the book, but still need the TSBs scanned? Are you trying to get ALL the TSBs from each book, or only those relevant to these trucks? There are some (like 83-03-24 "NP208 Range Fork & Nylon Annulus Hub Wear") that apply to these trucks, but aren't relevant now since they deal with things that, if they haven't happened by now on someone's truck, never will. So I didn't plan to scan those few. What's your opinion?

If that's your plan, I'd scan each book's contents pages (for the books you don't have) so we can decide which TSBs you want. Here's 83-09:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AlpxxZpR6JnPdCYkYohDNVw4YzSc1MFp

By "Have" I just meant that I own the bulletin. In fact, I own bulletins from late '79 to that 83-11-A with but 3 exceptions. However, I started scanning on the '79 end and have only scanned the applicable articles from the first three bulletins.

And, by "applicable articles" I mean those that apply to the F & U-Series trucks. I look in the index of that bulletin, note the ones that they say apply to the "Light Trucks", and then pull out and scan only those for the full-sized pickups and Broncos. And that would include all of them, whether they should have been fixed by now or not. Basically, I want to flesh-out the master index - some day.

As for you uploading, the easiest for me would be for you to give me individual links. Otherwise I have to look in your folder to see if I already have it or not.

And, I'm still researching the "public" vs "with a link" bit.........

Thanks!

 

[Steve83]

By "Have" I just meant that I own the bulletin. In fact, I own bulletins from late '79 to that 83-11-A with but 3 exceptions. However, I started scanning on the '79 end and have only scanned the applicable articles from the first three bulletins.

And, by "applicable articles" I mean those that apply to the F & U-Series trucks. I look in the index of that bulletin, note the ones that they say apply to the "Light Trucks", and then pull out and scan only those for the full-sized pickups and Broncos. And that would include all of them, whether they should have been fixed by now or not. Basically, I want to flesh-out the master index - some day.

As for you uploading, the easiest for me would be for you to give me individual links. Otherwise I have to look in your folder to see if I already have it or not.

And, I'm still researching the "public" vs "with a link" bit.........

Thanks!

Here are the other '83 Contents (did you see the one I edited in above?):

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1JBefzvOVEynH5c0zJXkaRP897Q-rgukW

I dropped the res to 300 just for Contents because that's the lowest (quickest) my scanner will still do searchable. LMK if it's too dirty for you to find what you need.