How can I...extract content from a program that I bought...

Started by Bernadette, March 17, 2017, 10:42:36 PM

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Bernadette

in order to make it more "accessible" to me?

In a nutshell: I bought The Complete National Geographic a few years ago (probably posted about it on the forum, now that I think about it); I'd really love to have my computer read the articles to me, the way it reads PDF documents (and practically all other documents, that I'm aware of). But it just...won't. It's like the actual contents are inaccessible to the screen reader.  :huh: This is mildly infuriating, bordering on regular infuriating (depending on what kind of day I've had). Is there ANY feasible way for me to remedy this? All I want, is for the computer to read the articles (which I've already purchased) to me, in its monotone robot voice.  :-[
My Lord and my God.

Gardener

"If anyone does not wish to have Mary Immaculate for his Mother, he will not have Christ for his Brother." - St. Maximilian Kolbe

Bernadette

Under "Properties> Type of File> "Complete National Geographic Image (.cng)"

:shrug: So...basically just a picture?
My Lord and my God.

Gardener


https://diplograph.net/posts/decoding_the_complete_national_geographic_images

If you can get it converted to jpg images, you should then be able to run it through an image to text OCR converter.

After that, your speech program should be able to simply read it to you.
"If anyone does not wish to have Mary Immaculate for his Mother, he will not have Christ for his Brother." - St. Maximilian Kolbe

Daniel

Quotethey're actually just JPEG files that have had each byte xor'd with 0xEF.
lol

Bernadette

Quote from: Gardener on March 17, 2017, 11:17:37 PM

https://diplograph.net/posts/decoding_the_complete_national_geographic_images

If you can get it converted to jpg images, you should then be able to run it through an image to text OCR converter.

After that, your speech program should be able to simply read it to you.

So I did some reading, and one article said that converting the whole set would take somewhere around 180+ HOURS?!  :eek: I have this...irrational fear that if I tried that, my computer would just say "Oh, no way!" and blow up in protest, or something!
My Lord and my God.

Daniel

Quote from: Bernadette on March 19, 2017, 05:09:38 PM
Quote from: Gardener on March 17, 2017, 11:17:37 PM

https://diplograph.net/posts/decoding_the_complete_national_geographic_images

If you can get it converted to jpg images, you should then be able to run it through an image to text OCR converter.

After that, your speech program should be able to simply read it to you.

So I did some reading, and one article said that converting the whole set would take somewhere around 180+ HOURS?!  :eek: I have this...irrational fear that if I tried that, my computer would just say "Oh, no way!" and blow up in protest, or something!
Haha.

But it's not going to take 180 hours. The 180 estimate only pertains to the Tcl script on this page. But the C script on this page should do it in about 45 minutes.

I really don't know anything about Tcl, but if you want to use the (faster) C script you're going to need a compiler. Because the download on that page is just the script, not an exe file or whatever.

Bernadette

Quote from: Daniel on March 20, 2017, 06:47:03 AM
I really don't know anything about Tcl, but if you want to use the (faster) C script you're going to need a compiler. Because the download on that page is just the script, not an exe file or whatever.

I don't have any idea what any of this means.  :lol: :confused:
My Lord and my God.

Gardener

A compiler is s program which essentially takes the code and puts it together. From there, you have a working program.
"If anyone does not wish to have Mary Immaculate for his Mother, he will not have Christ for his Brother." - St. Maximilian Kolbe

Bernadette

Quote from: Gardener on March 20, 2017, 08:12:32 AM
A compiler is s program which essentially takes the code and puts it together. From there, you have a working program.
So where do I get that, for this particular code? ELI5, Gardener.  :lol:
My Lord and my God.

Gardener

Any compiler which handles C will work.

Just google. I cannot find one for you since work has most things blocked.
"If anyone does not wish to have Mary Immaculate for his Mother, he will not have Christ for his Brother." - St. Maximilian Kolbe

Daniel

There's a popular C compiler called GCC. But I'm guessing you won't be comfortable using it since it needs to be run through the command line (i.e. it has no graphical interface).
So you should probably look for an IDE (integrated development environment) rather than just a compiler.

Unfortunately I don't have any suggestions for you. (I'm on a Mac so the software is all different, and I don't program in C to begin with...)