Friday, November 19, 2010

Useful links - software and filing

In the past I've spent time making PDFs of things I've scanned (knitting machine punchcards and old manuals) and always did it by creating a blank word document and inserting each picture individually. This is very time-consuming, and if there are a large amount of images, the screwy way computers deal with numbers means that if you try to insert every picture at once, you'll spend another 20 minutes shuffling them into the right order.

With that end in mind, I found PDFArea's free "image to PDF convertor". You still need to have a sensible numbering system (scan01 works better than scan1), but it's easy enough to move files up and down. They do other software too (eg PDF to Image).

Now, sometimes I end up wanting to combine PDFs and I don't have Adobe Acrobat. I found PDFTK builder - this allows you to combine pages 1-20 of the first PDF with pages 35-40 of another. Again it's freeware, and very simple to use. You can also use it to split PDFs and add passwords etc.

Terri J recommends "Office convert PDF to Jpeg tiff" for splitting anything you've scanned that needs touching up, straightening etc. I'll be honest, I've installed it but haven't really used it yet.

Something else I've been doing lately is organising my knitting machine magazines into magazine binders. I found a great store - Modern Bookbinders - that does cordex and wirex magazine binders that you can buy online. So far I've tried the cordex binders - a plain navy blue with 13 cords, and they are very good for normal magazine thicknesses. I'm going to get two of the 25 cord ones for my Brother magazine collection, as those mags are a bit thicker and I'd like to have one set per binder (and just leave out every other cord). You can also buy spine labels I think, but I've got a label printer that works just fine for me. It's best to buy a few at once if you can - thanks to Royal Mail's pricing system the box is quite big (they fold flat) so postage for one is £2.50.



So, back to our regular schedule of crafty stuff. Last night I gathered up the ends of the 6m tube we knitted on the CSM on Wednesday. I've got beads to string and decorations to dig out of the attic. It's all coming together!

1 comment:

Laritza said...

The magazine binders look great. Did a quick search and there is no such thing this side of the pond. I hope they will turn up here sometime soon.