Thunderbolt
SOC-12
A little experimentation that might be of interest.
I've been looking to turn my collection of FASA, Gamelords, Paranoia stuff into PDFs to go along side the splendid Far Future files. Once scanned, they will sit in their protective sleeves and life is good...
However, having Photoshop but not wanting to shell out for Acrobat Professional, I did wonder if I could get some level of text searching, particularly for Spotlight which makes the Far Future collection eminently useable.
Since Photoshop will turn a sequence of images into PDF format, I tried a little experiment. Taking IISS Ship Files as an example, I added a text layer containing the word 'Hnneshant' on the scanned title page for said Vargr trader.
After conversion to PDF, I can load up the file in Preview, re-save the file back to itself, and magically, Spotlight and Preview search start working. I'm not sure yet why this apparently redundant step is needed, perhaps it's a Mac thing. It does offer the possibility of at least placing text at the start of each article, adventure etc and have those appear in searches.
On Windows XP, text is searchable within the PDF straightaway, and word find (while taking a while), locates the file, but without opening the PDF at the appropriate page. Spotlight of course takes you direct to the page as normal.
Not a fully searchable PDF, but if you annotate the headings right, could be a viable substitute.
I've been looking to turn my collection of FASA, Gamelords, Paranoia stuff into PDFs to go along side the splendid Far Future files. Once scanned, they will sit in their protective sleeves and life is good...
However, having Photoshop but not wanting to shell out for Acrobat Professional, I did wonder if I could get some level of text searching, particularly for Spotlight which makes the Far Future collection eminently useable.
Since Photoshop will turn a sequence of images into PDF format, I tried a little experiment. Taking IISS Ship Files as an example, I added a text layer containing the word 'Hnneshant' on the scanned title page for said Vargr trader.
After conversion to PDF, I can load up the file in Preview, re-save the file back to itself, and magically, Spotlight and Preview search start working. I'm not sure yet why this apparently redundant step is needed, perhaps it's a Mac thing. It does offer the possibility of at least placing text at the start of each article, adventure etc and have those appear in searches.
On Windows XP, text is searchable within the PDF straightaway, and word find (while taking a while), locates the file, but without opening the PDF at the appropriate page. Spotlight of course takes you direct to the page as normal.
Not a fully searchable PDF, but if you annotate the headings right, could be a viable substitute.
