PDFs of Patterns in Books

[B'ville Scroller]

I own MANY books of patterns for the scrollsaw. It sure would be nice if the publishers would offer - for a small additional cost - a PDF file of the patterns in the books. This would save me from having to scan each pattern after breaking the binding of the book. For example, Fox Chapel recently published Scroll Saw Baby Animals. We are demonstrating at the New York State Farm Show later this week and then at The Woodworking Shows in March (first time in 16 years it will be in New York State!). Easy items to demo like small puzzles that can be handed to visitors after cutting are puzzles. Rather than having to scan each page (time consuming), a file with all the patterns would be much easier to work with! What are the chances? What do other scrollers say?
By the way, I subscribed to the German scrolling magazine and for qualified subscribers you can obtain for free and download each issue's patterns for a certain amount of time after publication of the physical magazine!
What do you say, Fox Chapel?

[grandpuppies]

I think thats a great idea. I am a big fan of books but I hate to break the back just to have a pattern. That will eventually destroy the book. If I'd paid in the neighborhood of $20 or more I resent the need to do this for a pattern or set of patterns I've already paid for. If the book is good and the patterns are good I rather pay a little more for PDF's of the patterns.

[will8989]

What’s the site for the German magazine again? sawdust clogged my brain and I forgot to order it.

[Rolf]

https://www.feinschnitt-kreativ.de/

[Don in Brooklin On]

I have inquired for years and the comment is always we are working at it.

I buy the CD's when they are available even though I own most.

They recently changed how they put the centre fold in the PDFs just to make it a challenge.

You have to realize that the people who run Fox Chapel are publishers not Scrollers or computer people.

I don't think they monitor this forum since Bob left but I could be wrong.

[BobD]

Another way to reach them is [email protected]

[Rolf]

I have inquired for years and the comment is always we are working at it.

I buy the CD's when they are available even though I own most.

They recently changed how they put the centre fold in the PDFs just to make it a challenge.

You have to realize that the people who run Fox Chapel are publishers not Scrollers or computer people.

I don't think they monitor this forum since Bob left but I could be wrong.

Three staples? what has changed?

[meflick]

What’s the site for the German magazine again? sawdust clogged my brain and I forgot to order it.

https://www.feinschnitt-kreativ.de

[BadBob]

I have several PDF patterns I purchased from different sources. Just about all of them have bitmaps or jpg files for the patterns. I think these need to be SVG. Steve Good patterns are SVG files encapsulated in a pdf file. I can load his patterns directly into Inkscape and resize them to fit my project with no loss of detail. The way it should be done IMO.

The worst books are the ones that have color patterns and the ones where they overlap things to get them all on the same page.

I'm not too fond of the shading, but I can see where it could be useful for intricate patterns. However, the shading makes cleaning up the scanned pattern more difficult to clean up for converting to SVG format with Inkscape. I convert nearly every project to SVG.

[Don in Brooklin On]

Three staples? what has changed?

On the CD's for 49 - 72 they now include the page for the broadsheet inserts is one big PDF page. In order to get out a single pattern you have to have some computer smarts. It seems they are not consistent on how the patterns are on the page. Sometimes individual objects that can be copied out. Often multiple objects.
For CD's for issue 1 - 48 the patterns on 8/2 by 11 page sizes. Open page and print.

When you have an Intarsia project in middle of the sheet and you want multiple copies it is a pain

They don't make it easy.

Yes- The books still have 3 staples but leave holes in the sheet. My closest Staples can't scan the broadsheet at 31x21 but have directed to me to another Staples that may. I am going to investigate next week as on line it looks expensive but they can do engineering documents cheaper.

[Rolf]

Don, On the CD If you are looking at an individual magazine and scroll to the very end of that issue it has the big pattern broken down into individual 8.5 x 11 pages.
If you look at Issue 48 Fall 2012, The Kathy Wise pattern of the cat on the moon is broken up into 4 sheets.

[Don in Brooklin On]

You are right on issue 48 but from issue 49 onward on the CD's only one page for each side of the broadsheet. See Teddy bear by Graret Hall issue 49.

Maybe there is a better way to extract the images but I only have GIMP and Inkscape and Adobe reader at my disposal.

I can get the pattern extracted in Inkscape but I don't know if the average scroller could do.

Not very user friendly as the previous issues of the CD's

[Rolf]

Don, I just looked at the newest disc volume 6 issues 61 - 72. If you go to the main directory and go to pattern pullouts. The big pull out pattern is tiled into 8.5 x 11 sheets in a PDF format that can be easily printed using adobe (free) or any other program that reads PDF files.
You just have to make sure that the printer is set to actual size or no scaling depending on your printer.
The only difference from the old CD's is that instead of having the tiled prints at the end of the magazine they now put them all in a separate directory.

Everyone should have the Adobe PDF reader on their computer.

[Don in Brooklin On]

Hi Rolf

I just checked my DVD and I only have 3 directories.

Article Index
Issue PDF
Readme.txt

I just checked the original DVD and my date is 2019-06-05

I don't see that directory in the Issue PDF either.

I wonder if they have added "pattern pullouts" later. I will contact the editors to see if I can download somehow.

[Rolf]

My volume 4 Has Article Index, Extra Stuff, Issue PDF, Readme.txt The extra stuff are a couple of extra patterns.

Volume 5 Has Article Index, Issue PDFs, Pattern pull outs, Read me

In volume 4 I did not find a copy of the large sheet but it was broken down to the 8.5 x 11.

I your Issue PDF is just the large sheet?

I would contact customer service.