Living with the digital copies

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi David, not only that but you get the title bar, the task bar and all the other bits you don’t want.

 

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 07/06/2011 22:43:24

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi Nicholas

See my screen shot above your post.

regards David

 

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi There

Yes, I did a full screen page dump of Digital Machinist.

Perfectly readable.

I can’t post it here because of copyright.

regards David

 

[blowlampParticipant @blowlamp]

Is everyone aware that you can quickly zoom your screen size by pressing CTRL and + (plus) or – (minus) keys before taking a screen-dump, to get the size and level detail you need?

 

Martin.

[Gone AwayParticipant @goneaway]

I see David has pipped me to the post. I was about to express doubts that people are really getting the resolution they think they are with a screen capture.

 

I think David has used somewhat extreme numbers …. monitor resolution is more typically in the 90 -120 dpi range and 300 dpi for printing is a bit perfectionist; you can get decent enough printing at 200 dpi.

 

Nonetheless, I think his point is well made. Screen capture is absolutely not a good substitute for a decent print option (in any context).

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi David, yes I saw that and I’ve managed to do one as well, but havn’t uploaded it, just wanted to see if I could do a a full one.

 

Martin, if you have a wheel mouse, you can use the wheel to zoom in and out once you have zoomed onto a single page.

 

Regards Nick.

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Why are we having to jump thru hoops ?

 

We get or pay for the digital issues, they do allow is to print them out even if it’s one page at a time.

 

The problem is print quality which to put it mildly – sucks.

 

If My Hobby Store put a printed issue out in this format it either wouldn’t be sold or there would be complaints.

 

So why do they do this with the digital issue ? it’s paid for, it’s goods under contract and not fit for purpose.

 

End of story, no limp excuses needed – sort it.

 

John S.

 

[Gray62Participant @gray62]

Posted by John Stevenson on 07/06/2011 22:59:48:

Why are we having to jump thru hoops ?

 

We get or pay for the digital issues, they do allow is to print them out even if it’s one page at a time.

 

The problem is print quality which to put it mildly – sucks.

 

If My Hobby Store put a printed issue out in this format it either wouldn’t be sold or there would be complaints.

 

So why do they do this with the digital issue ? it’s paid for, it’s goods under contract and not fit for purpose.

 

End of story, no limp excuses needed – sort it.

 

John S.

 

Absolutely agree John,

I am so fed up with lame excuses for what can only be described as abysmal copy! The digital issues for me do not replace the printed materiel but provide a useful, quick reference to past articles.

That said, If we are provided with a digital copy as part of ourt subscription, then it should be useable. That also means that we should be able to print out parts of articles that are of readable quality.

Of all the test prints that I have done, the quality varies from barely acceptable to totaly unuseable.

I appreciate that this site is still in a development phase and is in all respects quite immature in its technology, that said, with all that is available for the publishing of digital content, there is little excuse for the poor publishing quality.

In this era of technological ability, there really is no excuse for the quality we see in the digital issues.

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi There

We are looking at upgrading the digital quality and putting it on the Ipad as well.

Hopefully by the end of the month.

regards David

 

[Tony JeffreeParticipant @tonyjeffree56510]

Posted by David Clark 1 on 08/06/2011 09:19:22:

Hi There

We are looking at upgrading the digital quality and putting it on the Ipad as well.

Hopefully by the end of the month.

regards David

 

I hope they aren’t going to limit it to iPad – there are plenty of Android-based pads (and phones) out there too. And Android-based machines are starting to outsell IOS-based machines, so the market for putting it on Android will actually be bigger.

 

Regards,

Tony

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi Tony

It should be fine on Android.

regards David

 

[Lester CaineParticipant @lestercaine30947]

The new version that is coming up?

The existing one does not work on either of my android pads. I just assumed it was due to ‘content protection’ not being available in the android version of flash. It tells me to update to a newer version.

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

The new version that is coming up.

regards David

 

[macmarchParticipant @macmarch]

Do my eyes deceive me? Just opened a back issue of M.E. as a PDF file.

Superb printed copy.

Can you do this with M.E.W.?

4th button from left, and it opens full screen.

 

Edited By Ray L on 08/06/2011 19:04:28

[Lester CaineParticipant @lestercaine30947]

I Knew I’d seen that button somewhere. I think it was also on some of the extra article link?

http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/extra/

ME_4346 looks a lot more like I was expecting to get. – when downloaded as a pdf …

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

So it’s already in the software, that copy of ME has the extra button but the released versions on MEW don’t.

 

Just looks like it needs permissions in the reader software ?

 

John S.

[bellerophonParticipant @bellerophon]

I hate to say this, but there’s no problem at all if you use a Mac – it is almost certainly due to the publication using Qark Xpress for publishing – Can’t say if the problem applies to Linux as I stopped using that 18 months ago when switching to Mac but there was never any problem with Ubuntu and reading the pdf’s in firefox – there is a few seconds delay as the image comes up initially in low res but on Firefox and Safari browsers the image sharpens up after a few seconds to allow 4 point type being read even on a laptop

 

Says it all about Windows!!!!

 

 

Don campbell

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Don,

It sharpens up the same in windows, the problem is then you go to print a page to a pdf file to save it you loose quality.

 

Open a page up on your mac, select print page then print to a pdf printer and tell us if the pdf copy comes out clear .

 

My windows machine reads PDF’s fine, just not PDF’s from the MEW reader.

 

John S.

[bellerophonParticipant @bellerophon]

Hi John

 

No pdf’s print fin eon the MAc (I use both Samsung colour laser and HP mono laser) and resolution is fine down to 4 point with no raster effect visible Windows!!!!!

[Lester CaineParticipant @lestercaine30947]

Don … I’m on Linux … ME_4346 is perfect, anything download a page at a time is poor.

Also found that the first 5 Northumbrian Articles have the download button and blow up nicely to produce the drawings.

[bellerophonParticipant @bellerophon]

Just checked to make sure I was right and yes pin sharp printing of both handwritten sketches and 6 point italic in references on HP laser using the “print this page” button and 100% page enlargement setting ie no zoom

 

It is the translation into windows code that must be the problem – linux is of course Unix based as is Mac OS x

 

Don Campbell

[bellerophonParticipant @bellerophon]

 

Lester

 

Linux Rules!! just haven’t got time because of work (I’m self employed) to justify time spent on coding drivers which was really just for fun – once you have a Linux setup working it’s great

 

Unfortunately MAc OSX does actually work out of the box with no need to find drivers or go onto the C:> prompt

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

The early MEW PDFs are scans.

The remainder of the PDFs are Quark for the earlier ones and Indesign for the last few years.

regards david

 

[bellerophonParticipant @bellerophon]

Thought so!

 

As I’m on can I say to David Clark I have read the various criticisms (unfairly in my view) levelled at the editorial team in the past and would just like to say I and I am sure the majority of readers have appreciated your efforts in both MEW and ME in the past and continue to do so

 

The magazines in hard copy are eagerly awaited and given me much pleasure at times when life’s not been very nice!

 

 

Don campbell

[Lester CaineParticipant @lestercaine30947]

David – returning to the earlier drawing that was what prompted my original query, page 703 of the current mag of Brian’s article. How IS the quality of the Indesign master?
I can’t read any detail on Linux or Windows machines, so how does it look on your Mac Don?

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