The Best of Sherlock Holmes

Mac Users: How to Copy the e-Baker Street Journal to your Hard Disk

By Randall Stock, February 2, 2013

Copying Instructions and Tips

These instructions are intended for you to make a working copy of the eBSJ. You are only allowed to make a working copy from an original eBSJ DVD that you personally own. See the eBSJ Terms of Use (PDF) at the BSJ website for more details.

Please do not steal/pirate this copyrighted material. It is available for sale at the Baker Street Journal website.

If you only own the BSJ on CD-ROM, see that BSJ on CD section below.

The following instructions are for Mac users. If you use Windows, see the page for Windows users copying the eBSJ.

1. Check how much free space is available on your hard disk. (optional)

Most owners of recent Macs have huge hard disks and lots of free space. But it doesn't hurt to check since you will need approximately 900 Megabytes (or about 1 Gigabyte) of free space.

Click the Finder icon in the Dock to open a Finder Window.

On older Macs, your hard disk free space will display at the bottom of the Finder window.

On new Macs, in the left sidebar of the Finder window, click on Macintosh HD (or the name of your Mac system hard disk).

Press Cmd+I (Command and the letter "I") to Get Info about your disk, including free space.

Note that 1 GB = 1 Gigabyte which is roughly 1000 Megabytes.

You can run into various system problems if your hard disk becomes very full, so I would not recommend copying the eBSJ to your hard disk if you have less than 2 Gigabytes (2000 Megabytes) of free space. If you are low on disk space and previously copied the BSJ on CD-ROM files, see below about deleting the BSJ CD-ROM files.

2. Create a new folder on your hard disk.

This folder will contain all your eBSJ files.

While the location and name of the eBSJ folder are not critical, there are a few things you can do that will simplify using the eBSJ and may increase your efficiency:

a) Make a separate folder just for the eBSJ v2

It is much simpler to find specific BSJ issues if all the eBSJ v2 files are in a folder with no other files. If you already have the BSJ on CD-ROM (eBSJ v1) files on your hard disk, create a NEW folder for the eBSJ v2 files.

b) Name the folder as "eBSJv2HD" (without the quotation marks)

Any name is fine, but my suggestion makes it clear and easy to locate.

c) Start by creating the new folder on your desktop

Again, any location is fine but this simplifies the process described in step 3.

To create a new folder on your desktop and name it:

Click on the desktop, then press Cmd+Shift+N
A new folder will appear, ready to be named
Type in the name: eBSJv2HD

3. Copy ONLY the core files of the eBSJ v2 DVD into your new hard disk folder.

Hot Tip: Do not do anything else on your Mac while the files are copying (no web browsing, listening to music, etc.)

Hot Tip: Do NOT copy the DVD drive icon or the "Alternate" folder.

The Alternate folder contains a secondary version of the eBSJ that requires nearly 3 Gigabytes. Most people don't need it, so don't waste the time and disk space copying the Alternate folder.

a) Insert the eBSJ v2 DVD into your Mac

b) Click the Finder icon in the Dock to open a Finder Window

If the new eBSJv2HD folder on your desktop is not visible, move the Finder window or the folder icon so you can see both of them on-screen at the same time.

c) In the Finder Window left sidebar, under Devices, click the eBSJv2 DVD icon

This should display all the files on the DVD in the main part of the Finder window. If you see big icons rather than a long list of filenames, click the View Button at the top of the Finder window and choose Text/List view.

d) Select all the DVD files in the main Finder window area

Press Cmd-A to select all the files and folders.

e) Deselect just the Alternate folder *

Point your mouse above the Alternate folder, press Command and while holding it, click your mouse on the Alternate folder.

f) Drag the selected files from the DVD onto the eBSJv2HD folder on your desktop

Click your mouse over the selected files in the Finder window, drag onto the eBSJv2HD folder icon, and release your mouse.

Hot Tip: Be sure to drag exactly onto the folder icon. You want the 270+ files to go into that folder, not onto your desktop.

A progress bar will appear showing you the copying process. Wait until copying is complete. It can take 5 minutes on some computers.

* You should leave the "eBSJv2-Index" folder selected in step "e" above because you do want to copy it, but NOT the "Alternate" folder. There is no harm in copying the Alternate folder, but copying takes much longer and you use a lot of extra disk space.

4. The results.

You will have the following in your new eBSJ folder on your hard disk:

eBSJ-v2 Index (a folder)
a-ReadMe and Terms of Use.htm
a-ReadMe and Terms of Use.pdf
eBSJ-000a StartHere.pdf
eBSJ-000b Index 1946-1969.pdf
eBSJ-000c Index 1970-1974.pdf
eBSJ-000d Index 1970-1993.pdf
276 BSJ issues (eBSJ-001… to eBSJ-276…)
eBSJ-v2 Index.pdx

If you see big icons in the folder's Finder Window, click the View Button at the top of the Finder window and choose Text/List view to see the list of detailed filenames.

If you select everything in the folder and Get Information (Cmd+I), you should have:

285 files, 1 folder and about 862 MB used

Note: Actual hard disk space used may vary slightly depending on the overall size of your hard disk.

You can Eject the eBSJ v2 DVD:

In the Devices area of the Finder window sidebar, click the eject button icon to the right of the DVD name

5. Move the new eBSJv2 HD folder (optional)

Most users will want to move their new eBSJ folder off the desktop and into their main Documents folder.

a) Display your Documents folder

In a Finder window sidebar, click Documents.

b) Drag the eBSJ folder from your desktop into Documents

Hot Tip: If you have other e-Holmes material, create an e-Holmes folder in Documents, then drag the eBSJ folder into the e-Holmes folder. This makes it easier to find and search amongst your e-Holmes items.

6. Set Adobe Reader to use the eBSJ PDF Catalog index

If you use Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat to view PDF files, you can use the enhanced searching option included with the eBSJ. This provides much faster and more powerful search capabilities.

For more-detailed instructions with screen shots, see my Adobe Reader Tips (PDF).

In Adobe Reader XI:

1. Choose Edit > Advanced Search.

2. Click Show More Options (near the bottom of the Search window).

3. From the Look In drop-down, choose Select Index.

If you previously had the BSJ CD-ROM on your hard disk, and had set Adobe Reader to use the catalog index for those files:

a) In the Index Selection window, click the line with an index title "The Baker Street Irregulars."

b) Click the Remove button

This does not delete that file; it just removes it from your list of index choices.

4. Click the Add button and navigate to the folder with your eBSJ files

5. Select the catalog index (PDX) file "eBSJ-v2 Index.pdx" (not the folder) and click Open.

6. In the Index Selection window, confirm there is a checkmark next to eBSJ-v2 Index and click OK.

The Look In drop-down should now say "Currently Selected Indexes"

This sets the eBSJ catalog file. You only need to do steps 4 and 5 this one time. For future searches, just be sure the eBSJ is one of the selected (checked) indexes. See the eBSJ Tips page for more about Searching.

7). Remove the older eBSJ version 1 (BSJ on CD-ROM).

If you previously copied the BSJ on CD-ROM files to your hard disk, you no longer need those old files. While they should not cause any problems, you can free up about 2.5 GB of disk space by deleting them from your computer.

Note: Most people have their computer set so that deleted files go into their Trash bin/folder. To actually free up your disk space, you will need to empty your trash after deleting the files.

8) Read more about the eBSJ

See the Tips on Using the eBSJ

For Mac Owners of the old BSJ on CD-ROM

How to Copy the BSJ on CD-ROM to your Hard Disk (Mac)

These instructions only apply if you personally own the actual BSJ on CD-ROM disks and you do not have the eBSJ v2 (on DVD). Please do not steal/pirate this copyrighted material. A newer version is available for sale at the Baker Street Journal website.

The following instructions are for Mac users. If you use Windows, see the page for Windows users copying the eBSJ.

1. Check how much free space is available on your hard disk.

You will need approximately 2.5 Gigabytes (2500 Megabytes) for the BSJ on CD-ROM files.

See the above instructions for how to determine free disk space.

2. Create a new folder on your hard disk.

See the above instructions for creating a new folder on your hard disk.

3. Copy the contents of all four BSJ on CD-ROM Disks into your new hard disk folder.

You'll use the same basic steps as noted in the above instructions for copying eBSJ v2 files, with the following differences:

a) After copying the files from one CD, eject it and insert the next CD

b) Select and copy ALL the files on each CD

c) Some files/folders are duplicated on each CD. When you get a warning message about replacing files, you can say Yes to replace all those duplicate files.

After copying is complete, you can save some hard disk space by deleting two files. These are the installers for very old versions of Acrobat Reader. The files are named ACRD4ENU.EXE and AR405ENG.BIN (the EXE and BIN suffixes may not be visible depending on your Finder settings). They use about 11 MB of disk space and you don't need them.

4. The results (for the BSJ on CD-ROM).

You will have the following in your new BSJ folder on your hard disk:

The overall Table of Contents file (00000-~1.pdf)
The Introduction to the collection (0000-i~1.pdf)
Cumulative Index for 1970-1993 (000-cu~1.pdf)
Cumulative Index for 1946-1969 (000-in~1.pdf)
Subject Index for 1970-1974 (000-in~2.pdf)
The BSJ issues in PDF files from "001-vo~1.pdf" to "221-xm~1.pdf"
An Index folder (with many sub-items), and top-level files "Index.log" and "Index.pdx"

If you do a Select All, Cmd+I (Get Info):

248 files, 10 folders, 2.34GB

Note 1: This assumes you deleted the two Installer files noted above in step 3.

Note 2: Actual hard disk space used may vary slightly depending on the overall size of your hard disk.

5. Set Adobe Reader to use the PDF Catalog index

The BSJ on CD-ROM comes with an Acrobat catalog file for advanced searching. However, it only works with version 9 or earlier of Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat. The exact process varies depending on your version, but generally you need to open "Full Reader Search" (Shift+Ctrl+F) or "Advanced Search" and in the Look In drop-down, choose Select Index. Then click the Add button, navigate to the folder with the BSJ files, and select the catalog index (PDX) file "INDEX.PDX" (not the folder). After you've selected that catalog file, your searches will use it to be much faster. See the Help in Reader for more details.

Go Back to Tips on Using the eBSJ