Robert,

You are absolutely correct,  the document has been scanned and OCR'd, but as
you point out there always tend to be inaccuracies with automatic OCR.
To insure that everything is preserved the scanned image is used but
selectable text is the OCR version.

If you look at the document properties you will see that it was generated by
Adobe Acrobat Capture 3.0 on 7/12/2001 at 17:34:12   ;-)


Dave



-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Ussery [mailto:uavscience@frii.com]
Sent: 06 January 2005 03:45
To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public.
Subject: Re: [OT]{WOT} Al Qaeda training manual on US DOJ site?


Mike Singer wrote:

>Moreover, they wrote: "The manual was found in a computer file" 
>and  "The manual was translated into English" May I ask why they 
>chose that kind of a font. The font inflates 30K text up to 1M pdf. 
>I doubt the bandits would like very much using 1M files instead of
>30K like Microchip with their XMbyte pdfs.
>
It's pretty clear from the .pdf that it was generated from a scanned-in 
government translation. I'll bet the course of events went something 
like this:
1) Govt. captures Al-Quaeda file
2) DoJ translates and prints it in a fairly standard Courier-like font.
3) DoJ then decides they want an electronic copy and for some obscure 
beaurocratic DoJ reason decide to scan the doc in (all 100ish pages of 
it) instead of hunting down the original translation.

The reason for the large file size is not the obscure font, but rather 
the fact that they were generated from scanned images, and not pure 
text. The unnevenness of the text, the splotches and imperfections on 
the pages, and the page borders around the edge all make it 
fairly clear 
that this is a scanned in document.
One interesting thing to note about the .pdfs, however, is that they do 
contain selectable (probably OCR-derived) text. I'd say the text has 
been OCR'd because of some formatting irregularities peculiar to OCR - 
for instance, random tabs, and irregular formatting (one or two letters 
of a word being bold, for instance).

My point with all of this is that there's nothing odd about the format 
of the .pdfs, other than the DoJ's choice to scan them in rather than 
create .pdfs from the original document. Even this, however, can be 
explained by the fact that the scanned original appears to have been 
used as evidence in some legal procedings. Thus, the document was 
probably scanned not for publication to the DoJ site, but 
rather for DoJ 
records and subsequently was published on their site.

TTYL

- Robert


-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist
-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist