the web posting problem - again

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@SFU.CA>]

> Leigh Palmer wrote:
> > I hesitate to show these. They are made from my lecture transparencies.
>
> > http://www.sfu.ca/physics/ugrad/courses/1999-3/p101
>
> I'd be interested in the process used to get from transparencies to the
> PDF files.  If merely scanned and printed to PDF, it seems that the file
> sizes would be much larger.  Was there any conversion eg. to vector
> graphics before creating the PDFs?

No. I simply Xerox my transparencies after lecture (killing the color)
and put them in our technician's mailbox. He scans them in at 100 dpi
using an automatic documant feeder and puts them up on the web site. I
want color, but to get it he could not use the document feeder (we do
not have a color Xerox). Recall that I asked earlier about automatic
document feeding of transparencies.

I know this makes unnecessarily large .pdf files. The first examination
file (with solutions) I did myself, but it took lots of my time, and I
scanned it at 75 dpi with less than satisfactory results. It is not
"vector graphics", but it is smaller than a scanned file.

Our problem involves the union as well. The technician can do this, but
it seriously impinges on his time and underemploys his talents. A
secretary could easily do it, but the union wants more money for a
secretary who loads a doc feeder attached to a scanner and a computer
than one who loads a doc feeder attached to a Xerox machine.

I know that no one in this group can help me solve the union problems,
but I will be very grateful to anyone who can suggest a better way to
get these things out to the students, since it is clear that they want
them and, at the very least, they do no harm.

Leigh