I have scanned our year book to a flashdrive and to my Pictures folder on my computer. Is it possible to put it on the website and if so what is the best way to do that?

JIM

There are multiple option for this, so I'll let other Admins elaborate. If you have jpeg images, you could choose to either use a single page and add all of your images to a long page, or you could use the Gallery Creator to create a gallery of these images. If you have a PDF, you could choose to add the PDF to the file vault for users to download, or you could look into the options for other 3rd party pdf solutions such as Issuu.com for uploading your PDF into their system and creating a Flash flip book from your PDF.

Again, I'm sure many Admins have their opinions on what is best here, so I'm sure they will contribute with answers.

I use issuu.com and really like the professional look, the background color I can give it, and the pages flip option. Our alumni think it's cool too.

I also use issuu.com, and love it. I have 3 yearbooks scanned in to the needed PDF files. Page turning is a blast.

If you want, I will temporarily turn off password required so you can view. It is on my Left Menu system, titled "Yearbooks, Full Scan"

I used PhotoBucket.com. It seemed to work with what I had (it's open so you can take a look). Sometimes we have to "stop" a page to get a better look.

It WAS alot of work so I am not setting up another gallery, which might be a good idea too!

Denise

I agree about issuu.com. You can print 1 or all pages and you can download. You can use Adobe to prepare the scanned docs so that there is a search capability too.
Here is an example of what it can look like.
http://issuu.com/stanmaupin/docs/1967_peer_rev_2_?mode=embed&layout=http%3A%2F%2Fskin.issuu.com%2Fv%2Fcolor%2Flayout.xml&backgroundColor=a4112b&showFlipBtn=true

I also used issuu.com for our yearbook. I think it's a great way to view the yearbook because it is set up so that you turn pages like turning pages in a real book, and the file is set up so that the pages can be viewed full screen, making the photos and text easy to see. Also, it doesn't require a lot of scrolling to view the pages, which would be required if all of your images were posted on one very long page or if they were posted in one long PDF, especially if the yearbook had very many pages.

Jim,

I use ISSUU for all sorts of things. I have 50 of our high school's yearbooks up on it (1915 - 1965), various pamphlets, high school newspapers, etc. I'm also a newsletter editor for a Forest Owners' association and am putting proof editions up before getting them printed and mailed to our members.

First get a (free) ISSUU account. There may be other ways to load them onto ISSUU (although I'm not sure about that) but the only way I do it is through PDF files.

First collect all your yearbook page scans in one folder. The scans I do are 600 pixels/inch, fairly good resolution but each page can be 7 or 8 MB so a 100-page yearbook will run about 750 MB in total. As ISSUU only accepts PDF files of less than 100 MB (and PDF conversion of images doesn't do any compression), I first need to run the collection of scans through a freeware compression utility. I use PhotoRazor and use 2000 bits/page and 90% image quality settings (near PhotoRazor's max). This reduces page size by about a factor of 10 but the typeset quality and photos remain amazingly good.

I then run the (compressed) file set through a PDF converter. I have an old version of Adobe Acrobat writer (NOT free) but freeware programs like PDF Creator should do the job for you.

Once you have that, single, PDF file (about 60 MB in my experience) you can upload it to ISSUU.com. After ISSUU "digests" it (can take 10 minutes or so) you'll have the opportunity to get the embedding code to load on your site.

I had so many yearbooks on one page that it was taking classmates with slow Internet connection forever to display the one page (40-some ISSUU connections running simultaneously). As a work-around for that situation I just posted the image of each yearbook's front cover on the site and hyperlinked it back to ISSUU. Classmates could then just click on the yearbook they wanted to explore more fully to get the full ISSUU experience.

Hope this helps.

Jim

This is a very timely topic for me. I am in the process of placing annuals from our High School years, plus the Junior High years (multiple feeder schools). The last instructions were great from Jim Minor and the view of Stan Maupin annual.

One question, is the issuu.com site password protected? Could a preceeding of following Class use the 'pdf' file that is already posted?

Thanks again.

JohnB

I have a feeling I have scanned all of these incorrectly..took me three days...!!! I am so computer illiterate I am not even sure what a PDF file is..

HELP!!!

JIM

JohnB-

Re ISSUU site. First of all, your account is password protected. Thus you and only you (or your designee) can upload documents to your section and/or make changes to existing ones. Second, I believe you can elect to make documents public or private. Forgot what all privileges that entails but if "private" it won't be displayed to others browsing the ISSUU site but you can still acquire embedding or linking code to it. Also, I believe you can also select (for each document) whether you will allow viewers to download and/or print the documents. I'd encourage you to explore a little more on your own with them.

JimL -

Your scanner probably sent the scanned images to your computer as JPG or JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) files. They might also be any of several other file formats which would in most instances be fine. I'm not sure which file types PhotoRazor accepts but other compression programs should work or you could find conversion programs.

PDF (Adobe Software's Acrobat-defined Portable Document Format) files are a common way of producing exact images of files that can be read by anyone no matter what software produced them and even though the person reading them might very well not have the software that produced the document. Adobe was very clever in their business model in that readers of PDF files (e.g. Adobe Acrobat Reader) were (and still are) given away free. However, the writers (e.g. Adobe Acrobat Writer) were not. Adobe's versions cost several hundred $'s.

If you have a PDF writer installed on your computer it appears that you have a new "printer". Virtually any software that you have on your computer will have a "print" mode. When you go to print your software will ask which of your printers you wish to print on. If you select the PDF "printer" it will "print" it to a PDF file to be saved on your computer. You can then share that with anyone else who has a (free) PDF reader.

Other companies have gotten into the fray and now there are quite a few free PDF writers such as the PDF Creator software I mentioned that will do much of what the Adobe version will but may not have all the bells and whistles that Adobe keeps adding (e.g., the ability to add annotations to documents).

The bottom line, Jim Lange, in all likelihood your scans are probably fine. If collectively they are under 100 MB you won't even need to compress them with PhotoRazor or its ilk. Compressed or not (but still under 100 MB) use something like PDF Creator and it will do just as its name says and convert your images to PDF format, ready to send to ISSUU or equivalent sites.

Jim Minor

Well, thank you! We have been playing all week with uploading our cookbook to the site and I have just not been happy with the way it looked. I have already uploaded it to issuu. WOW.

Now, can they download the cookbook as presented through issuu on the site or should I have a separate copy in the vile fault for downloading?

I love you guys! You make me look fantastic!

Margaret

Margaret,

I'm not aware of all the trade-offs between ISSUU downloads and CC downloads (e.g., quality, convenience, speed) and others probably have more experience than I.

However, one thing I'm a nut on is trying to limit what I store in CC's 200 MB file space to an absolute minimum. Not because it's too small (I expect it will be plenty big for me... I have plenty of stuff up, don't expect to add all that much more and am at only 24% usage) but I just don't want the headache of finding out one day that I've run out of space. Thus I have as much material off-site as possible. Based on that alone I'd endeavor to play around and see how good (quality, etc., as above) downloads from ISSUU are.

Jim

Thanks. I will play with it and post my results here.

Margaret

Don't look to me for much help...I wish I could but I'm pulling my own hair out...sorry

Can you catch my hair when you catch yours on the way down? It is part of the job and keeps us mentally challenged. Gotta exercise that brain to stay forever young!

Margaret

Hi Jim, currently our yearbooks (we're a 3 year reunion group, but also have a few yearbooks for years before and after our years) reside as photo albums on PicasaWeb. They're set up as non-public albums which require you to know the link to get at them. Thus they aren't searchable from PicasaWeb and are not indexed by search engines (PicasaWeb is owned by Google by the way).

To get at them, we have a page called Online Yearbooks (requires a member to be logged in) that links to each PicasaWeb album. When you do click on one, the yearbook starts up as a PicasaWeb slideshow. It's possible to interrupt the slideshow so you can persuu the entire album. Ideally I'd liked to not be able to drop out of the slideshow, but it's not a showstopper in any case.

Recently we upgraded our membership from a grandfathered free site to Premium, and I may move the yearbooks back onto CC's storage subsystem and use the built-in Photo Gallery to display the albums. We'll have to see how much disk space the yearbooks take up and that accessing/thumbing through the books works well. I don't think filespace will be a problem as the yearbook pages don't need to be super high resolution. We should be able to keep each page as a relatively small file, and still be good resolution to be displayed by a classmates' web browser. We might try PDF documents too. Time will tell what works best.

This is referring back to the promise I made for an update...

I could not find a way for classmates to download the cookbook through the issuu cookbook itself on the site. (Doesn't mean there wasn't one!)

I uploaded the file to the site vault and underneath the issuu link, I just said Click here to download the cookbook with some instructions for the challenged.

Thanks,
Maargaret

Can someone tell me how ISSUU charges? I can not find that info on their site and I do not want to get a free account just to get that info. I have access to a clean copy of our yearbooks and with the posting from Jim above, I think I can accomplish the process. I do however want to pass the cost by our committee.

Joan

You can have multiple uploads with the free account so long as no document is over 100 MB is size. Your will have some advertising visible during display of your free documents.

With the Pro, no ads, much larger documents -- cost is $19/month.

I uploaded a 400 page cookbook for no charge. M:O)

Can anyone tell me if PhotoRazor does the same functions as IrfanView. I also would like to know if I should have the Yearbook scanned with 2 pages per scan or 1.