eblc1388
Active Member
Hi,
I have recently bought a service manual which dated back to 1977 and the bindings of the manual is fast coming apart due to age. So I decided to scan it and combine the scanned images into an electronic document.
I ended up with tiff files of 39 pages of text and 19 pages of A3 GIF schematics. The total file size is 7.21M. I asked my friend who have Acrobat to convert them into a single PDF document and the result is a PDF of 6.6MB.
One day I came across the BoatAnchor Manual Archive and discovered that they use a file type of .DJVU for uploaded manual. I did a search on the Usenet News and the following came up.
Quote:
=============================================
From: Randy McLaughlin (randy@nospam.com)
Subject: PDF v DjVu
Newsgroups: comp.os.cpm
Date: 2004-09-21 14:35:20 PST
I have been using PDF's since that is "the" standard. I've been comparing PDF's v DjVu, one of the last manuals that I PDF'ed came out to be 5.11mb in size, I converted it to DjVu and it came out to 1.63mb.
Using DjVu I should be able to get more than two times as many documents in the same space and downloading will be less than 1/2 the time.
I used a "worst case" scenario for the DjVu test, I created a PDF file and converted the PDF directly to DjVu. I would assume that TIFF to DjVu may be better, I'll start testing.
The biggest question is how objectionable is DjVu, it does not have the market of Adobe but as in the Adobe the reader is free.
With around 1.5gb of manuals uploaded to date (and growing) a better format sounds enticing.
I got interested in DjVu when I considered converting the Cromemco 4FDC manual from DjVu to PDF format and found how much bigger the PDF file was. At first I thought it was a poor conversion process until I tried it the other way around.
end quote
============================================
So I downloaded the browser plugin and the compressor DjvuSolo 3.1 from the links on the following webpage:
**broken link removed**
and worked on my original scanned tiffs and gif files. The result is astonishing. I ended up with a file size of only 1.2 MB (with 39 pages of text and 19 A3 schematics) and have all the features of the PDF document like zoom and hyperlink support.
Here is what I like about this .djvu format, especially point (d):
a) same if not better display quality than PDF
b) free for personal use (viewer and compressor)
c) many times smaller result file size
d) panning much faster on high magnification of schematics diagram. (instant refresh for Djvu. Pdf won't refresh display until one release the mouse)
Worry:
a) format become obsolute (quite unlikely because of its high compression ratio)
My solution is to build both PDF and Djvu file with the PDF as the backup and use the .Djvu for normal viewing purposes.
I have recently bought a service manual which dated back to 1977 and the bindings of the manual is fast coming apart due to age. So I decided to scan it and combine the scanned images into an electronic document.
I ended up with tiff files of 39 pages of text and 19 pages of A3 GIF schematics. The total file size is 7.21M. I asked my friend who have Acrobat to convert them into a single PDF document and the result is a PDF of 6.6MB.
One day I came across the BoatAnchor Manual Archive and discovered that they use a file type of .DJVU for uploaded manual. I did a search on the Usenet News and the following came up.
Quote:
=============================================
From: Randy McLaughlin (randy@nospam.com)
Subject: PDF v DjVu
Newsgroups: comp.os.cpm
Date: 2004-09-21 14:35:20 PST
I have been using PDF's since that is "the" standard. I've been comparing PDF's v DjVu, one of the last manuals that I PDF'ed came out to be 5.11mb in size, I converted it to DjVu and it came out to 1.63mb.
Using DjVu I should be able to get more than two times as many documents in the same space and downloading will be less than 1/2 the time.
I used a "worst case" scenario for the DjVu test, I created a PDF file and converted the PDF directly to DjVu. I would assume that TIFF to DjVu may be better, I'll start testing.
The biggest question is how objectionable is DjVu, it does not have the market of Adobe but as in the Adobe the reader is free.
With around 1.5gb of manuals uploaded to date (and growing) a better format sounds enticing.
I got interested in DjVu when I considered converting the Cromemco 4FDC manual from DjVu to PDF format and found how much bigger the PDF file was. At first I thought it was a poor conversion process until I tried it the other way around.
end quote
============================================
So I downloaded the browser plugin and the compressor DjvuSolo 3.1 from the links on the following webpage:
**broken link removed**
and worked on my original scanned tiffs and gif files. The result is astonishing. I ended up with a file size of only 1.2 MB (with 39 pages of text and 19 A3 schematics) and have all the features of the PDF document like zoom and hyperlink support.
Here is what I like about this .djvu format, especially point (d):
a) same if not better display quality than PDF
b) free for personal use (viewer and compressor)
c) many times smaller result file size
d) panning much faster on high magnification of schematics diagram. (instant refresh for Djvu. Pdf won't refresh display until one release the mouse)
Worry:
a) format become obsolute (quite unlikely because of its high compression ratio)
My solution is to build both PDF and Djvu file with the PDF as the backup and use the .Djvu for normal viewing purposes.
