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Has anyone downloaded the 2003 Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide from Heritage?

Started by MyParentsComics-migration,

14 posts in this topic

awe4one

awe4one

Posted
Posted

I have....

 

Am I happy? Well it's OK. You get the whole guide in .pdf format. Can't manipulate the data though. It's convienent to have on the computer...but honestly, it's quicker to grab the book than scroll down the file. Would I spend $25 again? No. Would I spend $10-$15? Maybe.

 

 

Jim

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awe4one

awe4one

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They have an index to the left.....click on that and scroll.....or you can name search. Problem is.....let's say you do a search on "Fantastic Four". The search function will hit "every" instance that word comes up. Soooo....you have to get through all their appearances in Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers, Captain America, etc. before getting to the FF listing. Much easier to scroll down until you get to it. Or like I said in a previous post.....just open the book and find it.

 

 

Jim

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sckao

sckao

Posted
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Can't manipulate the data? What if you have Adobe Acrobat? (The software that costs about $100, not the free Acrobat Reader.)

 

 

It's probably locked which means you shouldn't be able to edit the PDF. Since it's probably a scanned page anyway, there really is nothing to "edit" in the first place. (Unless they just outputted to PDF from the original Pagemaker program or other program they used to set the book up.)

 

I was interested in the online format since I've downloaded my collection data into my PDA (and some of ComicBase's price listings.) It would be nice to have the entire price guide in your PDA when you go to conventions or stores. (It's also nice to know the holes in your collection.)

 

Unfortunately, I actually never finished inputting my entire collection since it took me forever just to input 8,000 books. After realizing that I wasn't even half-way finished, I basically tabled the process. (I just started entering runs I considered personally important in the database.)

 

Can you tell me how many megabytes it takes up?

 

Thanks,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Aman619

Aman619

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The creator of an Acrobat file CAN lock it so no edits can be made. The downladable CBGs are edited. You can only look at the pages.

 

Also, the poster earlier misspoke when he called each page a "scan" I tink he said it because they LOOK that way as each page is identical to the printed Guides. But, as you know from how Acrobat pdf-files work, you can zoom in and the fonts all redraw themselves perfectly at whatever size they need to on your screen. All the fonts and images are imbedded into the file itself.

 

Still, it seems theyve only solved half the problem - - now you can have the entire Guide's contents on your laptop, but its still easier to search the analog/paper version.

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sckao

sckao

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Also, the poster earlier misspoke when he called each page a "scan" I tink he said it because they LOOK that way as each page is identical to the printed Guides. But, as you know from how Acrobat pdf-files work, you can zoom in and the fonts all redraw themselves perfectly at whatever size they need to on your screen. All the fonts and images are imbedded into the file itself.

 

Yes, I don't actually have the online PDF version so I couldn't verify if they had generated the PDF's from the original layout program they used or had simply scanned the pages. That's why I said "possibly."

 

Of course, thinking about it now, the fact that they could search it (and had indexed it) indicates that it's not a scanned version.

 

(Whether it's locked or not, it's still possible to "UNLOCK" it theoretically although this wouldn't be legal per se.)

 

There IS a PDF reader for the Palm OS and the Pocket PC although I'm not sure how easy it would be use with all those embedded images (and full size pages.) I'd much rather just have a version that is designed for the smaller PDA screens.

 

22 megs isn't very large at all though.... (I might actually buy it now for San Diego.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Room 237

Room 237

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Hi,

 

There would be no point what-so-ever scanning every page of a book to make a PDF when all they have to do is click 'Save As..." or "Export as PDF" from the DTP program they are using.

 

Also, If it were scans, the PDF would be a lot bigger than 22 odd megabytes.

 

The PDF will 100% have been generated directly from the same digital files created for the printed version of the Guide - thats why the fonts are crisp and everything redraws nice when you zoom in.

 

I do think its a bit of a con tho, $25 for a basic PDF, no detailed search options or other functions - seems steep to me for what you are getting.

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sckao

sckao

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The reason why I originally thought it "could" have been scanned is that it's much harder to extract data from a scan. I realize that this was an erroneous assumption. (Also erroneous given the small size of the PDF.)

 

There's a big difference between "unlocking" a PDF or OCRing page after page just to extract some data for price lists. One is easy to do. The other involves a tremendous amount of time.

 

Turning existing paper forms into PDFs frequently involves using a scan of the paper form and overlaying the fillable form fields on top of it. I've done this for government forms since you want to maintain the exact look of the government form (but not have to feed in blank government forms into the printer.)

 

Even at $25, this is actually worth more to me than the paper guide actually.

 

 

 

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