A History Of The Clan MacLean
by
J. P. MacLean
Published in 1889 by Robert Clarke & Co.
This CD contains the complete book "A History Of The Clan MacLean" by
J. P. MacLean. Although this book is known to contain some genealogical
errors, it is still very good reading for anyone who is interested in
the Clan MacLean, its origins, and its history.
To view the book, I would recommend the following:
- Internet Explorer 6 or Mozilla 1.4, or a newer version of
one of these. It should work with Netscape 7, but I have not tried it.
Older browsers should work as well, but may not scale the pages to fit
your screen.
- A screen resolution of 1024x768 or greater. The CD will be viewable at
lesser resolutions, but the text may be harder to read.
- Javascript is required to use the jump to any page links.
- A fairly fast computer helps. The CD should work fine on slower
computers, but it will take a bit longer to display each page.
Each page in the book was scanned as a graphic image. OCR (Optical Character
Recognition) software was NOT employed to convert the images to text. This
means that the book is stored on this CD in the form of one picture for each
page rather than as searchable text. You will not be able to search the book
or edit it.
Although searchable text would have been preferable, OCR software was not used
because:
- My copy of the book is very old, so the paper has many flaws and
imperfections that would interfere with the OCR process. A newer copy
printed on modern paper would be better suited to OCR.
- OCR software will often have difficulty with languages for which
it was not designed. This book contains many Gaelic and Old-English words
and phrases which may not have been recognized properly.
- The OCR process is very time-consuming.
- OCR software is not as accurate as would be desired, especially
with a book of this type. I tried a sample page and got 10 to 15 percent
errors, which would have needed to be corrected manually.
If you are using Internet Explorer, it may show an image toolbar in the
upper left of each page. If you find this annoying, you can close the toolbar
from the menu that pops up when you right click on the toolbar.
Each page contains a link to the previous and next pages, and one to
take you back to the contents.
Each page is stored on the CD at a resolution of 1020x1720. If you are using
one of the browsers mentioned above, it will be capable of scaling the pages
to fit your screen. However, this may make the text difficult to read. There
is a link at the bottom of each page to open a full sized image of the page
in a new window. Use this link if there are parts you cannot read. Close the
new window to return to the scaled page.
If you are using an older browser that does not scale the images to fit your
screen, you can still view the book, but you will have to scroll left to
right to read each page. In this case, upgrading your browser is strongly
recommended.
Another link at the bottom of each page (and near the top of the index page)
will open a dialog box that allows you to jump to any page in the book. Enter
a number between 0 and 480 in the box when prompted. Javascript is required
for this.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to
email me.
Click here to return to the contents
The book was scanned and this CD was created by Doug McLean
of McLean Micro
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