Possibility of Obtaining Migne from Univ. Of Aegean

[Kevin W. Woodruff]

I'm quite new to this forum, but is it possible to write a script that would allow the pdf images at http://patrologia.ct.aegean.gr/PG_Migne/ to be used in Bible Works?

[Michael Hanel]

I'm quite new to this forum, but is it possible to write a script that would allow the pdf images at http://patrologia.ct.aegean.gr/PG_Migne/ to be used in Bible Works?

If you or anyone knows how, it would be great I've looked at some of the texts. They're probably a low "B" quality overall. Not all have versification schemes, some have problems at the end of lines (words are carried over to the next line but no hypen marks that), occasionally letters have underscores following them, etc. However, if these would be cleaned up they would be pretty decent. They're not the best critical texts out there, but some of them are so obscure, I'm not sure there are newer editions extant.

[Adelphos]

I'm quite new to this forum, but is it possible to write a script that would allow the pdf images at http://patrologia.ct.aegean.gr/PG_Migne/ to be used in Bible Works?

Yes, it is possible, as Pasquale, Attie, and others have shown. However, due to the enormous number of different files, I think it would be very difficult, especially since they would almost certainly have to be retained as PDF files. Otherwise I think it would be a matter of years rather than months or weeks in converting them.

In any case, what do you know about this particular selection of Migne? Is this all of Migne's patristic work? I have just barely perused the files, but any information you can provide about the provenance and description of what is actually provided there would be helpful.

[Kevin W. Woodruff]

I do know that not all the Migne has been scanned and proofed. I know that I can cut and paste it into my Word documents and that it uses the Windows font Gentium. As was pointed out in a post above, the files are not without their typoes. But for some of the key works, it might be a place to start if a script could be written to convert the Word file with the Gentium font into something that could converted into files that BibleWorks could use. I will admit to being a total ignoramus on the subject and process. I was thinking that some of the more valuable Fathers (like Eusebius' Onomasticon and Ecclesiastical History) might make a valuable addition to the database.

Kevin

[Adelphos]

I do know that not all the Migne has been scanned and proofed.

It's a tremendous project nevertheless. I hope they finish it. The PDF files seem to me to be in excellent shape for the most part.

Has anyone figured out how to search Greek in PDF's? That would be a great tool if anyone knows how to do it.

[Michael Hanel]

It's a tremendous project nevertheless. I hope they finish it. The PDF files seem to me to be in excellent shape for the most part.

Has anyone figured out how to search Greek in PDF's? That would be a great tool if anyone knows how to do it.

Depends how fancy you mean for searches. If you have a PDF open you can search for a Greek word or phrase (assuming you have the Greek keyboard installed), by simply opening the find or search box in the PDF and search for your word/phrase. So I opened it up, activated the Greek keyboard and searched for θεος and it seemed to search fine. Looks like it ignores accent/breathing marks....

[Adelphos]

Depends how fancy you mean for searches. If you have a PDF open you can search for a Greek word or phrase (assuming you have the Greek keyboard installed), by simply opening the find or search box in the PDF and search for your word/phrase. So I opened it up, activated the Greek keyboard and searched for θεος and it seemed to search fine. Looks like it ignores accent/breathing marks....

So simple I never thought of it. Thanks. Works like a charm.

[Michael Hanel]

If someone can arrange a specific text so that it is prepared with one "verse" per line, the font conversion is really not a problem (assuming there are no glitches ). So if someone would copy a chunk to Word and arrange it properly I can help w the macro work for font conversion. But I don't have the extra time to sit and do all the copying and prepping to get it to that point.

so if it has divisions in the text that are like this 1.1.1 , 1.1.2 it would need to be
Book1 1:1 TEXT
Book1 1:2 TEXT

and as long it is in Unicode, the font conversion should be easy.

[Adelphos]

If someone can arrange a specific text so that it is prepared with one "verse" per line, the font conversion is really not a problem (assuming there are no glitches ). So if someone would copy a chunk to Word and arrange it properly I can help w the macro work for font conversion. But I don't have the extra time to sit and do all the copying and prepping to get it to that point.

I'm sure I speak for the majority when I say that I don't think you're getting married and also preparing for your PHD course is any excuse to slack off on creating BW user modules. I mean, what's the deal?

I would rather see Migne formatted as CHM files, but there might be a use for plain user modules as well. Needless to say, to convert the whole set would be a monstrous undertaking.

In any case, if you can tell me how to do the font conversion, I might -- as time allows -- convert a file or two as user modules for BW.

[Michael Hanel]

I would rather see Migne formatted as CHM files, but there might be a use for plain user modules as well. Needless to say, to convert the whole set would be a monstrous undertaking.

I'm not as good on my HTML as on other things, but if you didn't keep the PDF file format (Which would make the CHM huge and thus very slow-loading), you could copy all of the text to Word and save that as an HTML file. Word generally makes the HTML a mess because it adds all kinds of its own markup, but that would be a way to do it anyway.

As far as the copyright notice. I can't understand what it means, but if someone was really serious about publicly releasing this, they would have to email that website to find out more. While the text itself is public domain, there still remains the legal grey area of whether someone can copyright digitization. I don't know that anyone has ever won definitively either way, but it's not something my legal team is prepared to fight yet