Electronic BBB in PDF

[twistedtree]

A while ago I bought one of the Mercedes Classic CDs with electronic versions of the BBB.  It cost about $50 and included the '59-'67 BBB plus the '67 onward edition.  It's set up to use a browser to view it, but right from the get go I had trouble with it.  It's wouldn't work correctly running directly from the CD.  For some inexplicable reason, when I copied the CD to my HDD, it started working correctly.  Regardless, I found the browsing tedious, and quite frankly difficult to find what I was looking for.

So, I retooled it into a giant PDF.  All the BB contents are already PDFs on the CD, so that formed the starting point.  Now I have a searchable BBB, laid out exactly like the printed version, with a table of contents with hot links to each section.  To me, this is SO much more useful than the CD, and more useful than the printed version.  I can print out a section, take it to my shop, trash it, and not care.  With full search capability, you can just search for "throttle" and find every occurrence of that term in the BBB.

If anyone else wants to do this, here are the steps.  It's a bit time consuming, but the results are very satisfying.  To do it, you will need a full version of Acrobat, not just the reader.

1) Find the version of the BBB that you want to process and merger all the individual PDFs into one big PDF.  Be sure you assemble them in the correct order.

2) Run the OCR function on the merged document.  The original PDFs are just scans of the printed BBB and hence unsearchable without running OCR on it.  This will take a LONG time.  I don't remember exactly, but I think it took around 6 hours to run.

3) Next make a table of contents.  I used word, then saved it as a PDF

4) Merge the table of contents into the main BBB pdf

5) Create links from the TOC entries to each section in the BBB.

[JamesL]

You could do a megaupload so we can all share!

[Richard Madison]

As the CD is sold commercially, there may be copyright problems if it is posted here.

Richard M, NYC

[twistedtree]

You could do a megaupload so we can all share!

It's copyright, so I'd have to get permission from MB to distribute.  Otherwise I would.

[pj]

If you made the Table of Contents yourself, you could share that with us. I think. Sounds like a lot of work went into that alone. I applaud your effort, regardless!

[twistedtree]

The table of contents for the '68 onward is attached.  Nothing fancy.  Once you merge it with the main doc you then need to create the links.  That's the tedious part (actually, it's all tedious).

By the way, does anyone have any inside track (contact) at MB?  If asked, maybe they would give permission to distribute.  It seems they only benefit from it being out there for everyone.

I'm trying to do the same thing with the older version and Acrobat keeps crashing while doing the OCR.  What a nuisance.

[mdsalemi]

Anything to do with "Classic" in the USA goes through Michael Kunz at the Classic Center.  That would be a good start.  I sincerely doubt whether you would get permission to distribute, but maybe they'll compensate you for your work and resell it themselves...

If you get nowhere with Mr. Kunz, I have some names at Mercedes Classic in Germany.

[twistedtree]

Excellent - thanks Michael.  I'll give him a try once I'm done with the current round of work on my cars.

[mdsalemi]

Excellent - thanks Michael.  I'll give him a try once I'm done with the current round of work on my cars.

As a follow-on, Peter, I recall some people having the issues you described some time ago, with the browser functionality.  I also recall that somebody queried Mercedes (I don't recall whether this was to the CC in the USA or Germany) and the discussion was that they were not going to invest anything else in that project.  If the work is done--maybe they will take another look at it.  Good luck and let us know!

[twistedtree]

I asked MB about distributing the BBB PDF and they said "no".  They have no plans to reprint the BBB, nor any plans to re-issue the CD even in its broken form.  Any they also won't allow distribution of a PDF of the BBB.

That seems counter to MB's interests, at least to me, so I asked again.  They said "no" again.  Uugg.  Big companies.  It's way easier to say No than to say Yes.

I think me asking more will just be banging my head against a wall.

Does anyone have any inside connections to anyone at MB who might actually want to do something good for their customers and company?

Just to be clear, I don't care who/how it gets distributed; I could do it, MB could do it, I even offered that this group might be able to do it.

[Cees Klumper]

I've found MB to be very inflexible and, dare I say, short-sighted to the whole enthusiast experience. They have their own ideas and that's just the way it is, not receptive to any suggestions, logical or not. Of course, we can't complain, with so many parts still available.

[66andBlue]

I am not sure whether these discs are all the same but they do show up on eBay quite often.
For example: http://www.ebay.com/itm/230737937866
Of course, the DVD runs only on somewhat older software/hardware packages.

[twistedtree]

I bought mine here http://www.mercedesmanuals.com/Mercedes_Benz_Manuals_Pre1970a_s/556.htm

For $55 you get both BBBs plus an assortment of owners manuals etc.  I thought it was a good bargain and is what I used to make an integrated PDF BBB.

[Peter van Es]

One way is to take the information from the BBB and type it (not literally, but rewritten) into the Technical Manual.

We then also need to redraw / photograph images on our own cars matching the BBB illustrations.

Then the Technical Manual becomes a replacement for BBB without affecting copyright issues.

It is quite a major undertaking but if we had 50 full members who each did 10 pages you'd get a long way!

[twistedtree]

You have a good point, and where the tech manual is complete I'd argue it's better than the BBB - more focused on the W113, and very practical for the home mechanic.  So, yes, let's keep building out the tech manual with all dispatch, but at least for me having the BBB as a reference is key and I'm glad to have the electronic version for its convenience, as  well as the printed copies (though badly tattered and falling apart)