Most of the text in the books on the Puritan Hard Drive (PHD) are now searchable, indexed and "copy and pasteable" through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) -- click on this link for the latest screenshots and information related to this great new development and the Puritan Hard Drive SPE SUPER SALE!

The world-class software architect who is heading up the development of the custom KnowledgeBase software, embedded database, and file preparation for the Puritan Hard Drive (PHD) has once again (by God's grace) implemented his God-given genius in these things to add another extraordinary feature to the Puritan Hard Drive.

Some of the search, cut and paste, indexing, etc., advantages of having the OCRed text available have already been mentioned in previous emails (email us at swrb@swrb.com to join our email list), so today I would like to focus on what may very well be one of the foremost feature enhancements that has resulted from OCRing the majority of the rare Reformation, Puritan and Covenanter books that are on the PHD (and remember you may download all the no cost PDF listings related to the massive 12,500+ resources on the PHD above).

As you probably know, Adobe's PDF reading programs have some very powerful search features. However, what you may not know (I didn't know this myself), is that it is possible to embed text indices into PDF files.

Why is this important? The primary advantage of embedding text indices into PDF files can be seen in how fast searches of PDF documents take place. I was recently testing OCRed/indexed PDF books that I received from our Director of Software Development and I am still shaking my head in shock at how useful it is to have virtually instant access to all the text in the books on the PHD that contain embedded indices (not to mention that for a number of these books this will be the first time in history that the text in these books is searchable).

Now the OCRed books on the PHD will all have embedded text indices which allows then to be searched at lighting fast speeds -- even for searches that bring up hundreds of results! What's more, even beyond the blinding search speeds that are now available, all these results can be viewed in context when you use the "Full Reader Search" in Adobe readers.

Now, when you are using the PHD, you can combine all the "big picture" features we have been revealing in past emails, to quickly find, list, amend, manipulate, save, print, etc., large or small resource lists from among the 12,500+ Reformation resources on the PHD (even adding your own personal notes) -- and then take your studies to the next level by getting into the most minute details of the text for every OCRed book on the PHD and in your personal search results lists.

I was literally astonished at how quickly I was able to complete complex research projects, when I was testing our upgraded PDF files, because almost as soon as my finger came off the mouse, after hitting the "Search" button in Adobe Readers' "Full Reader Search," the search term(s) I was looking for were already listed in content -- even when there were hundreds of search results. Thus, not only are many of the rare Reformation and Puritan books on the Puritan Hard Drive searchable for the first time in history, they are searchable at blistering fast speeds!

The embedded indices in our OCREd books on the Puritan HD have now eliminated a great deal of the common time barriers that previously attend the information gathering process of studying. Every instance of OCRed words are now literally at you fingertips in a large number of the best Puritan and Reformed books ever written!

Here is one example of how much computer waiting time you can save because of the embedded indices in the OCRed books (in PDF) on the PHD. If you were to average five "Full Reader Searches" (this is the advanced search you can use when you click the little arrow next to the "Find" box in Adobe readers and you choose "Open Full Reader Search") per day, over a 365 days, with the equivalent processing power I was using (4 X 2.5 GHz PPC G5 Mac with 4.5GB of RAM), you would save over one full 24 hour day of computer waiting time -- and some of us will be doing much more than five "Full Reader Searches" per day (on average).

And it is not just the total time saved, but as everyone who has graduated (over the years) to faster and more powerful computers knows, the increased speeds tend to change the way you use your machine -- allowing you to explore and learn more and more because it takes so much less time for various functions, this leading in turn to the doing of many things that you may not have even attempted on slower, less powerful, machines. This is exactly the advantage that embedding indices into the OCRed files provides you -- especially the ability to almost instantly pull large amounts of search results (in the blink of an eye)!

Just go to http://www.puritandownloads.com/ and download the no cost, complimentary copy of the SWRB PDF of William Cunningham's Historical Theology (volume two).

Better yet, you may also directly download this complimentary book using this URL: http://www.puritandownloads.com/Historical-Theology-Vol2-William-Cunningham.pdf.

This PDF contains OCRed text (behind the image of the actual book pages), an embedded text index, and an appended OCR-based (page number) index, which we have added, which are all the same items we have or will be adding to the majority of the books on the PHD (as previously announced).

One "Full Reader Search" that yielded the stunning results noted above was for the word "Calvin," with none of the boxes checked in the selection below where you enter your search term. The search of the OCRed/indexed PDF file of Cunningham's complete book took about two seconds and brought up 525 results. The exact same test on the exact same OCRed book, but without the embedded index took 51 seconds. Thus, this one search, with the embedded index in the PDF took about 49 seconds less than the same search without the embedded Index in the PDF. If you do the math for the scenario given two paragraphs above, you will see why you would save over one full 24 hour day of computer waiting time over a year because of the added embedded index (assuming similar searches on similar machines).

You should also make sure you have a recent version of Adobe Reader or Pro.