In Honor of Those Individuals Finishing the Semester: Lectures from 1797

Idle Schoolboy

Spring semesters around the world are drawing to a close, and the endings of academic quarters will soon follow.  Soon we will once again have time for frolicking — and for TypeWrighting!.

May children

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To honor all students in their current fervor–and to keep their TypeWright skills from eroding over the summer–I offer these Lectures on Logic and Belles Lettres, printed at the University of Glasgow in 1979.

The scan of this text has its own peculiarities.  Although the first handful of pages present the best of scans, with minimal corrections needed to the OCR, page 4 is an entirely different matter.  Page 4, and the rest of the even pages are tilted just enough to make the position of the red boxes problematic.

Having experimented with the lines on page four, I then consulted with the technicians and the rest of the TypeWright team, to develop an initial methodology for handling this not unusual situation:

  • If the box is clearly associated with only one line of type, leave the box alone, and correct the text for the entire line.
  • If the box falls between two lines, or contains two lines, or otherwise could be confusing, look at the context, the numbered text lines above and below the numbered line in question, to determine where the line falls in the sequence on the page.  Reposition the red box to contain most of the appropriate line while avoiding overlap with other boxes above and below, and correct the text for the entire line.
  • If a line has no box, insert one, and position it to clearly identify the associated line on the scan, similar to the other, machine-generated boxes on the page.  Correct the text for the entire line.
  • If a line has two boxes, pick one, and position it to clearly indicate the associated line in the scan, again, similar to the other, machine-generated boxes on the page.

The recurring themes here are to clearly associate a single box with a single line, and to correct the entire line, beyond the edges of the box.

Although this document has no catchwords, there are folio signatures at the bottom of some pages, and page numbers at the top of every page.  The OCR has recognized some but not all, so correct the ones that are clearly associated with a red box, and ignore it if it is not.

As always, please take time to tell us about your experiences with TypeWright by filling out our survey.

From the 18th Century Dilettante,

Happy TypeWrighting!

Anne Arundel