The Best of Sherlock Holmes

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 Windows users. If you use a Macintosh, see the page for Mac users copying the eBSJ.

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

Assuming you already have Adobe Reader (or other PDF viewing software) installed, you will need approximately 900 Megabytes (or about 1 Gigabyte) of free space.

Using Windows 7

From the Start Menu, select Computer. First, click to select your hard disk (usually "C:") icon. Then (if you don't already see the free space listed) right-click the already-selected hard disk icon and choose Properties. The Properties dialog will show you how much free space is available. Note that 1 GB = 1 Gigabyte which is roughly 1000 Megabytes.

Using Windows XP:

From the Start Menu, select My Computer. Then right-click on your hard disk (usually "C:") and choose Properties. The Properties dialog will show you how much free space is available. 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.

The following steps assume you have a hard disk named "C:" so substitute your disk's name if it is different.

Follow the same steps if you are copying to a USB Flash Drive.

2. Create a new folder/directory 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) Put the eBSJ folder with other similar content

I suggest making a general folder for all your e-Holmes material (perhaps named eHolmes), and then create an eBSJ folder inside of it. That way if you have the e-SHJ, the e-BSM, the BSI Books e-indexes, or other e-Holmes items, they can all have their own folders inside an overall eHolmes folder.

c) Consider putting the folder in location not subject to backup

If you have software that does an automatic backup of your hard disk, you may not want to waste the time and backup disk space for the eBSJ files since you already have them on DVD.

For example, you might want to create the following:

C:\eHolmes (folder for all your e-Holmes material)

C:\eHolmes\eBSJv2 (folder for your eBSJ v2 files)

On the other hand, some people will find it simpler to just create the eBSJv2 folder in their main Documents folder.

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 PC while the files are copying (no web browsing, listening to music, etc.)

Hot Tip: Do NOT copy the DVD drive letter 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.

First open the empty eBSJ folder window from your hard disk. Resize the window so it only uses part of your monitor screen.

Then open the window to your DVD showing the individual files on the eBSJ DVD. Resize that window so you can see both it and your eBSJ hard disk folder window.

In the DVD window:

First select all the files & folders (Control-A, or Organize > Select All, or Edit > Select-All)
Then de-select the Alternate folder (hold down Control key, and click the Alternate folder)*
Copy the files (Control-C, or Organize > Copy, or Edit > Copy)
Click your mouse into the empty eBSJ folder on your hard disk
Paste into that empty eBSJ folder (Control-V, or Organize > Paste, or Edit > Paste)

Wait until copying is complete. It can take 5 minutes on some computers.

* You should leave the "eBSJv2-Index" folder selected 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 select everything in the folder and check Properties, 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.

5. 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.

6). 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 / Recycle folder. To actually free up your disk space, you will need to empty your trash after deleting the files. Alternatively, on most computers, if you select the files, then hold down the Shift key and then press the Delete key, it should bypass the Trash/Recycle folder and immediately remove the files.

Go Back to Tips on Using the eBSJ

For Owners of the old BSJ on CD-ROM

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

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 Windows users. If you use a Macintosh, see the page for Mac users copying the eBSJ.

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

Assuming you already have Acrobat Reader installed, 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.

The following steps assume you have a hard disk named "C:" so substitute your disk's name if it is different.

Follow the same steps if you are copying to a USB Flash Drive.

2. Create a new folder/directory 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 Windows 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, right-click, Properties:

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.

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