Belowzero
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Prepublications PDF conversion
Hello again,
Since I currently have no space to conduct chemistry and I would like to contribute something to the community I came up with the following.
I noticed some broken images in prepublications section a while a go.Using thewaybackmachine I found some of the missing images.
So I figured this might be a way to reconstruct some of the prepublications.
Then I noticed that most of them have been fixed recently.
The prepublication section is probably the pinnacle of SM and as an effort to preserve this valuable information I thought of creating PDF's out of
this material.
Also as a final tribute to our beloved Magpie.
Now there are quite a few challenges doing this such as formatting, staying true to the writer, graphical style etc.
So I decided to share a quick and dirty attempt at doing this.
The intention was to remove page breaks but I failed so please ignore those for now.
Attachment: Sulfur trioxide - Len1 rev1.pdf (314kB)
This file has been downloaded 66 times
After messing around with automatic tools I finally gave up and switched over to a document writer, ordinary copy pasting and formatting.
A few points:
1. The classical almost vintage sand color of SM seemed like a nice feat. (is it?)
2. Obvious spelling mistakes have been fixed, went for US English but this is up for debate.
3. Kept potential mistakes as not to further obfuscate the authors intent or to introduce false corrections.
4. Replaced clumsy forum way of doing things with a more appealing style (such as notes)
To do:
1. Find a nice style for equations, this might be risky and introduce unintended mistakes.
2. Find out how to remove page breaks as to reduce painful editing.
3. Create a template, font, sizing etc. So I will be able to apply a uniform format.
4. Consider if PDF is really the way to go, I never really liked it but it is probably the most widely adopted.
5. Preserve image quality as much as possible.
My intention is to do this for all prepublications that are not already available in document form.
But only when I can come up with a sensible way of doing this.
So please tell me how you feel about this.
Any input would be appreciated.
And yes I realise this is quite the task 
[Edited on 17-1-2024 by Belowzero]
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Texium
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Belowzero, I appreciate you taking this on! Personally, I like the cream color background (my original version of the wiki used it too), but I know
that not everyone is as enthused about it, so that design choice may be up for debate.
I fixed the broken image links in that thread last year. They were all images that are hosted on this site, so they weren't really gone, the syntax
just needed to be changed from HTML to bbcode. We stopped allowing HTML in posts a few years ago for security reasons, so there are quite a few
instances of broken formatting (especially in bfesser's posts, since he used HTML profusely). j_sum1 has fixed some in other threads. If you see any
others that need repair, just let one of us know. It's quite an easy fix.
I think it's high time we updated the Member Publications section: http://www.sciencemadness.org/member_publications/index.html
That's what prepub is supposed to be for. We just haven't uploaded any final documents in years. Thanks for getting this rolling!
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Belowzero
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Thanks Taxium!
Decided to drop the background color since it is horrible for printing.
Quite fair to assume that these documents will be printed in the future.
Also kept the page breaks for same reason, lot of work but worth it I think.
I definitely do not envy people who do this for a living, quite a lot of tinkering to produce something half decent.
I created a formatting/style template which can be applied to other prepublications with relative ease.
In my opinion this format is quite pretty, modern but also modest.
I would really appreciate some input on this layout.
Any opinion is appreciated!
Attachment: Sulfur trioxide - Len1.pdf (6.1MB)
This file has been downloaded 56 times
[Edited on 19-1-2024 by Belowzero]
[Edited on 19-1-2024 by Belowzero]
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Belowzero
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To make sure the template is not overfitted to a particular writer I tried another one.
Attachment: Galinstan-activated aluminum - Melgar rev1.pdf (6.8MB)
This file has been downloaded 77 times
And one more. Once the stuff is in place it gets easier.
Attachment: Magpie - Preparation of Acetic Anhydride rev1.pdf (226kB)
This file has been downloaded 65 times
To prevent image quality loss I decided to use the original size as a default, if it's too large a full page will be used, if there is any chance that
it can fit on the same page as accompanying text then a tiny bit of downscaling is permitted. This is to prevent excessive empty spaces in the
document.
[Edited on 20-1-2024 by Belowzero]
[Edited on 20-1-2024 by Belowzero]
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j_sum1
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Belowzero -- I am excited about this project.
I compiled a full response the other day and lost it when I closed down my work laptop. (Should not have been doing SM at work, I guess.)
I will attempt to recover my thoughts and respond to the additional pdfs you have prepared.
But in the meantime, this is awesome. Thank you.
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Belowzero
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Thank j_sum1!
Looking forward to your response.
This is the word template that I am currently using.
Perhaps this will also be helpful for future prepublication writers or if we have members that feel like helping me out, now that would be great 
Now I know word has some advanced features for enforcing certain styles and if anyone here knows how to do it then please feel free to do so. I am
learning as I go.
Any style updates can be applied in retrospect aswel, I will provide the source files too. This is also useful for correcting mistakes.
Attachment: SM_TEMPLATE_V2.docx (72kB)
This file has been downloaded 51 times
[Edited on 21-1-2024 by Belowzero]
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Bedlasky
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Great project Belowzero! This is a time consuming task. Your effort is really appreciated!
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