pdf's of Acts

[David Biggins]

I agree it's a neat solution - but it still limits access to those who are
not as net knowledgeable,  and who want to use more or less only what comes
with the box.

Even making them download acrobat reader, which after installation is
(supposedly) more or less transparent to the average user, is a bad move,
and setting things up so that they need to use comparatively little-known
tools such as Black Widow to see the documents effectively, is definitely a
bad move.

My own preference is that documents should be provided in three forms:

* PDF for those who wish to be sure they are seeing the document exactly as
it was presented to the house.

* chunked HTML for fast online browsing.

* single-file "portable" HTML with internal links for general-purpose
download and viewing.

I cannot see why this should be difficult or expensive - the cost of
sourcing (or for that matter creating) tools to create both of the latter
two automatically from the first, should be trivial, particularly compared
to the other costs in the exercise.

## dave ##


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Duncan Campbell [mailto:duncan@gn.apc.org]
> Sent: 29 November 2002 23:53
> To: ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> Subject: Re: pdf's of Acts
> 
> 
> 
> My solution to this issue is (for the Acts available on HMSO) is:
> 
> Use a site ripper to download linked the html.   I'm using 
> Black Widow.
> 
> *  Point it at the first page of the Act concerned on the 
> HMSO site.   Set it to stay withing the URL.
> 
> * Download the linked pages.
> 
> * Use the convert option to link the pages to the main page 
> on your hard drive.
> 
> * Create desktop link to the index page and put it where you want.
> 
> I'd say this is even better than working to create a pdf or a 
> doc file.  You get the full functionality of the html links, 
> which becomes very convenient and very fast when its on your 
> local disk.
> 
> Duncan 
> 
> 
> At 27/11/2002 17:37, you wrote:
> >Does anyone know where pdf's of Acts can be found on the 
> net? I'm fed up
> >looking at the HMSO "chunked" html ones, and they are only 
> available for the
> >last ten years or so anyway.
> >
> >If no-one can help there, I could put pdf's of Acts on the 
> net for download,
> >if I could get them. I'm willing to convert the HMSO ones to 
> pdf's, if
> >people think it's worthwhile, and I suppose I could get hold 
> of some earlier
> >ones that aren't available like PACE and OCR them. It would 
> be limited to
> >Acts that are of interest to this group (and 
> cyber-rights-uk), but I might
> >include some EU/HO stuff too.
> >
> >Is this a good idea? Anyone interested in helping?
> >
> >
> >-- 
> >Peter Fairbrother
> 
> 
>