The woes of scholarship

[fpb]

Aie aie aie. Woe oh woe.

Having to read very large books.
Having to read very large books in German.
Having to read very large books in German and printed in Gothic script.

Comments

[norwyn.livejournal.com]

Now that it is downloaded, you can highlight and change the font? Just asking, I've never done an e-book before...something about them just doesn't seem right. But I am thankful for the technology that allows us to have access to so much text that would otherwise be out of reach.

Have a great day working, and take a break now and then to rest from the eyestrain.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I know how to highlight in PDF format, which is what this is - thanks to curia_regis - but not how to change the font; and if I did, I would not dare. Before I tried to download the old Fraktur (Gothic) text, I had a look at the transcribed "plain" text on offer, and was horrified. Pages upon pages of pure gibberish. It seems that the combination of unusual script and German language had had a baleful effect on revisers or spell-checkers.

[filialucis]

I very much doubt you could change the font even if it were possible in apps like Acrobat Reader. You can only highlight text in a PDF at all if it was entered AS text, and Google book scans consist of images. Short of actually performing OCR on a Google PDF, what you have is nothing any computer application would see as text.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Yes, and if you performed OCR you would need careful proofreading. Like I said, you would not believe what gibberish turned up on the page when I tried to download the so-called plain text version.