Errata for the Electronic Baker Street Journal on CD

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Errata and Limitations of

The Baker Street Journal on CD

The BSJ CD set contains more than 10,000 pages of text. When you combine that massive quantity of material with the limitations of some scanning software, it's to be expected that there are some limitations with this release of the electronic BSJ. None of these should prevent you from buying the current product. I only mention them because this information may help you save some time and avoid frustrations. I've listed workarounds that may be helpful. Please contact me if you find other errata or limitations, so we can inform others who use the e-BSJ.

Problems pasting text into a word processor

When pasting text from the BSJ you generally need to use the "Paste Special" command of your word processor and choose "Unformatted Text." The standard paste command makes the pasted text invisible (white on a white background). You can select the invisible pasted text and change the text color to black, but that's often more of a hassle than just using the "Paste Special" command. The only benefit of using the standard paste approach is that the text will usually retain any italic formatting from the original.

Text errors when pasting into a word processor

OCR software is not perfect, and you'll find spelling / recognition errors in any scanned resource, not just the BSJ. Some errors will appear on most pages. There will likely be more errors in older issues, which used a font that is harder to process. If you paste the text into a word processor, you may be able to use its spell-checker to correct many of the errors. As another workaround suggestion, I've found that copying the image (graphic) version of the text into my word processor along with the underlying text makes it easier for me to manually proof and correct errors by viewing both on-screen at the same time.

Text not selectable / Cannot be copied

Due to OCR limitations, most of the issues from April 1952 - July 1958 (files #19-46) are lacking the underlying computer text and thus there is nothing to select or copy. Also, be sure you have chosen the "Text Select Tool" before trying to select text. See the section on Copy/Capture missing text for workaround tips.

Text is not found or Search does not find all keywords

Just because you can see the text image on-screen does not mean that the underlying text exactly matches it. Due to OCR issues, the underlying text may have a misspelling or may be completely absent (as noted above). To minimize the impact of OCR errors, search for as few letters as possible and use wildcards. Remember that the Search function looks for complete words unless you use wildcards. See my Tips for Using Acrobat and the "searching" suggestions in Tips for Using the BSJ CD for more information.

Text not readable on-screen / missing pages

- July 1947 ([OS] Vol. 2, #3) pp. 324-325 missing

- April 1952 – July 1958 [most issues lack the hidden computer text]

- September 1965 (Vol. 15 #3) pp. 130 (TOC), 131, and probably 190-191 missing

- March 1994 (Vol. 44 #1) pp. 30-31, 34-35 missing

- June 1995 (Vol. 45 #2) pp. 68-69 missing; p. 80 missing / replaced

(p. 80 shows instead a loose advertisement included with this issue)

- March 1996 (Vol. 46 #1) p. 55 scanned pages overlap

- March 1997 (Vol. 47 #1) pp. 66-72 and both sides of back cover missing / unreadable

- September 1999 (Vol. 49 #3) p. 42 missing / unreadable

- December 1999 (Vol. 49 #4) p. 35 missing / unreadable

Some issues from the mid-90s included advertisements on the inside front cover, but these are not reproduced in the BSJ CD files.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Les Moskowitz for helping to identify errata and providing suggestions for workarounds.