LBB size

[plazman30]

And this is where I learn that chasing an exact replica is a fool's errand.

This spacing is close to the original, at least to my eyes. And page 4 and 5 look great. Page 6 has text roll over onto the next age, and so does Page 7. The header on Page 9 "Types of Robots and Their Uses" is wider than the margins of the page. I can see that it's a little wider than the margins in the PDF also. But dealing with these kind of "one-offs" is going to be a PITA and makes it not worth the effort. It goes from a fun little side project to a tedious thing I'd only be willing to do if someone paid me to do it.

 

[whartung]

Looks better, but I know what you mean.

 

[plazman30]

Well. now that I have the styles down, I got through about 15 pages pretty quickly. But it's going to require a proofread. Sadly, this will probably end up a personal project, since I can't just release a PDF for free of something Mongoose Publishing sells now. I haven't gotten to any pages with tables. Those will be challenges.

 

[spank]

The box I've got isn't marked 301, I think it's a 1977 edition. It measures 6 1/8" by 9 1/8", outside. Which makes sense, just a little bigger than the books. The bottom seems to be 6" x 9"
Which would make the inside dimensions 5 7/8" x 8 7/8"

 

[plazman30]

The box I've got isn't marked 301, I think it's a 1977 edition. It measures 6 1/8" by 9 1/8", outside. Which makes sense, just a little bigger than the books. The bottom seems to be 6" x 9"
Which would make the inside dimensions 5 7/8" x 8 7/8"

How high is the box?

 

[plazman30]

You know, I'm thinking about this conversion here. If this was my full-time job, I could use PDF-Expert to convert an LBB into a Word document and then probably clean it up and get it to a form where it would just require proofreading in a day. Most of these LBBs are less than 70 pages, which you could probably proofread in a couple of hours. So, realistically, if this was your full-time gig, convert an 80s LBB to a OEF pure digital file in under 2 days.

Something larger like The Traveller Book may take longer. maybe 2 weeks.

Kind of neat how technology has progressed.

 

[plazman30]

I wonder what kind of market there would be for a cleaned up and reprinted LBB set. Using my method above, you could make a complete set of at least LBBs 1-9 and maybe put them in a box, and sell that via Kickstarter as a 50th anniversary recreation. The only problem is they would not be a page for page layout match. But they would contain all the original text and artwork.

At this point, it's a question of whether you want something that matches the original exactly, page for page, but doesn't look as crisp and clean as the original. Or do you want something that's not a page for page recreation with super crisp and clean text in it?

I actually used an AI upscaling tool to try to take one of the official PDF page and upscale them to 1200 DPI. The result was impressive. But the file size was HUGE. I think it went up to about 30 MB PER PAGE.

I recently bought a Cyberpunk 2013 boxed set and scanned the entire thing in, since R. Talsorian Games doesn't sell that version of Cyberpunk digitally. I scanned every page at 1200 DPI. The final product looked really good, and printed out. nicely. But one book that was 60 pages long had a file size of 2.2 GB.

 

[MongooseMatt]

I wonder what kind of market there would be for a cleaned up and reprinted LBB set. Using my method above, you could make a complete set of at least LBBs 1-9 and maybe put them in a box, and sell that via Kickstarter as a 50th anniversary recreation.

Do you have... spies in our office?

 

[plazman30]

Do you have... spies in our office?

Great minds think alike! Send me one after you make it and we'll call it even.

 

[spank]

How high is the box?

I get 1 1/2"

 

[plazman30]

I get 1 1/2"

Thank you!

 

[spank]

Thank you!

No problem,
Happy to help.
I put it next to a Car Wars Box and a Castles and Crusades box, the are both about 1/8" bigger than the Traveller box. But the books are 5 1/2" by 8 1/2" So in the end the Traveller LBBs in the Traveller box are the most satisfying fit. Probably an artifact of the books and box being sized together, rather than being two off the self solutions.

 

[plazman30]

Ok, I need to get an LBB made. Can anyone provide a high-res scan of the bottom of the box, preferably 1200 DPI?

 

[spank]

Ok, I need to get an LBB made. Can anyone provide a high-res scan of the bottom of the box, preferably 1200 DPI?

I think there are atleast 2 different versions of the bottom of the box. The 1977 that I have has a white bottom


And I know later versions have a black bottom with a different illustration.


I assume you are looking for the later version, pretty much any boxed set I see is pretty road worn, and even a 1200 dpi scan will require alot of clean up.

 

[whartung]

I've never seen that second box.

I still have that first box, but...it's, um, flat.

 

[plazman30]

Thank you. I'll see if I can make that work.

 

[spank]

I've never seen that second box.

I still have that first box, but...it's, um, flat.

Mine isn't in the best shape either,
From what I can see the white on is '77 and the black on is '80.

 

[plazman30]

My POD copy of High Guard came in from Mixam.com. Came out pretty good.

 

[plazman30]

I think I like Mixam better for a few reasons:

1. They'll do a saddle stitch book up to 64 page. Lulu will only do 48.
2. Lulu does a square back saddle stitch. Mixam just does a straight saddle stitch.

I redesigned the cover. I forgot to add the 308 in the upper left corner, and I justified the text on the back cover, because I thought it looked a lot nicer.

 

[whartung]

How much work did you do in prepping it, any special lessons learned, and how much does this cost?