Wikisource:Scriptorium/Help

This author page has a notice that it could be deleted due to no license info. I tried to add it but the warning remains. Can someone explain what I’m getting wrong? Thanks so much!

Author:Julia Greene Stampdragon (talk) 18:07, 17 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

I added appropriate licenses, but I had to make a guess on her date of death (which is relevant for licensing), based on some text that you put in the header. Do you know her year of death? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:10, 17 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Stampdragon: In case you're interested, I have uploaded over a dozen books that she worked on, so you can start transcribing. If you need help, let me know. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:53, 18 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Sorry for the late reply but a thousand thank yous for your help and adding more books by this author! I so appreciate your kindness! Stampdragon (talk) 13:53, 9 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

It's a team effort, SD. We hope that you'll stick around and please let us know if you have any questions or issues. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:02, 9 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Author:Cecil Octavius Weatherly versus this FindAGrave entry. Both of them were born in Portishead, Somerset and were barristers but one was born over three years prior. Nighfidelity (talk) 03:08, 18 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

I would say, very probably the same person. I guess the FindAGrave entry is erroneous, but I still added it to Wikidata. Yann (talk) 08:04, 18 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, the name is uncommon so likely the same person. Re findagrave: they're wrong because the newspaper clipping they use as source says he died at 66 which looks more like 1869. — Alien  3
3 3 11:37, 18 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thanks! Nighfidelity (talk) 12:18, 18 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

I agree that it’s the same person. Find A Grave is usually unreliable as people add dates without sources so they may or may not be right. Even headstones are incorrect with dates more often than you’d think! Good luck! Stampdragon (talk) 13:55, 9 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hello,

I had a question and a proposal on the discussion page of a template. As there is no answer after one month, I wonder I should better ask here (or where?), or at least, mention that question: Wikisource Template:Multiple_image (discussion) I needed, I will move the question here. Coetledefretdena (talk) 14:35, 3 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Actually at Template talk:Multiple image and there is now a response. -- Beardo (talk) 18:59, 3 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. Coetledefretdena (talk) 10:35, 6 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Could someone format the "Western edition" section of this page? Nighfidelity (talk) 21:25, 5 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

I suggested one method. May be not the best, but... Yann (talk) 22:23, 5 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

That's fantastic. Thanks for the help! Nighfidelity (talk) 23:04, 5 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

I tried to add another example… Coetledefretdena (talk) 11:09, 6 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Nighfidelity: LOL I was trying with Column, but you just did it! Now add valign=center in the Column template (to have ruse and text correctly aligned); and change maxwidth parameter with "compact=false" in the Border template to have it around the whole page. Coetledefretdena (talk) 13:53, 6 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thanks! Nighfidelity (talk) 14:03, 6 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

The “Journal of the United States Senate” from 1789 to 1875 is maintained here by the Library of Congress. There is a short article about this journal in Wikipedia here. There are 96 volumes.

The LOC site has images of each page (e.g., here) and a digitized text rendering of that page (e.g., here). As you can see, the latter is difficult to read; it is not formatted correctly. In addition, most tables that appear in the images are not digitized at all.

I think legal scholars would appreciate having Word or PDF versions of this journal. To that end, I have uploaded each digitized page and created Word and PDF versions that look very similar to the original images. I’ve also digitized and formatted the missing tables. And I added a table of contents to each volume. The Word versions can be viewed here to give you an idea of what they look like.

When I started this project I naively assumed that LOC would very much appreciate having these documents. But I was wrong—they’re not interested. I thought of Wikisource when I saw that the clean, digitized version of Maclay’s journal from Wikisource was referenced in the Wikipedia article on that document (see lower right-hand corner).

I’ve also done the same thing for the related “Journal of the U.S. House.” This is in 75 volumes.

My question: is there any way to make these volumes available in Wikisource? BillSellers (talk) 18:29, 9 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yes, please. That would be a hugely valuable addition here. In case you're not familiar with how files work, you'll need to upload the PDFs (not the Word versions) at our sister site, Commons. Once they are uploaded, we can transcribe them locally and they can also be used in other sister projects of ours like Wikipedia. If you need any help here or on Commons, feel free to reach out to me directly or ask on forums like this. If you ever need to reach me, you can include {{Ping|Koavf}} in any post that you sign and I will see it. Great work, Bill. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:02, 9 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Oh, and to be clear, we would like to have the original scans in the PDFs. I didn't look at the Word documents you have, but you'll need the original work to upload to Commons, not a cleaned up version. We could do cleaning up here as necessary. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:03, 9 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your quick responses--very helpful! I didn't make myself clear. The images and the (mostly unformatted) text are already available. It is the "cleaning up" that is my value added and it's taken MANY hours. The Senate images, for example, go from https://www.congress.gov/senate-journal/1/image to https://www.congress.gov/senate-journal/46563/image. There is no way I can download over 46K images one at a time! And there are even more in the House version. Can an exception be made? BillSellers (talk) 20:35, 9 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

You'll have to forgive me as I am notoriously slo. When I look at https://www.congress.gov/senate-journal/browse-by-date/1st-congress#1st-session I see links to download PDFs, such as https://www.congress.gov/senate-journal/congress-1-session-1-pt1-Pages1-95.pdf. So it seems like there already are compilations of the entire work that can be downloaded as-is from the LOC. I apologize that I haven't compared and contrasted yet, but can you tell me what your files are and how they are different? They certainly could be useful for reproducing the works here in a more accessible format. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:29, 9 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for calling my attention to the fact that some of the single images have been strung together--this would make it somewhat more manageable to retrieve all the images. But note that the pdf you reference is not complete--it doesn't contain the indexes. Also the congress.gov site does not have full text search capability for the Senate Journal until 1799. And their text rendering is not complete. For example, if you look here BillSellers (talk) 14:30, 10 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

[accidentally hit "done"] ...you will see 2 tables but if you view it as text (here) most of the information is missing. So the congress.gov site does not have full-text search capability for the entire collection, nor does it correctly render all the original pages. BillSellers (talk) 14:34, 10 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm still having a hard time following. Maybe I should just look at the .docx files. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:36, 10 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Oops--I just removed that folder. But I created a new one with just Word and PDF versions of the first session of the first Congress. It is available here. If it would help, I can add examples of what I was talking about before, in terms of how the files currently available at LOC could be much improved. BillSellers (talk) 21:45, 10 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Please and thank you. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:32, 11 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Example 1: missing pages from LOC pdf files:

The file called “congress-1-session-1-pt1-Pages1-95.pdf” is the one you already found for the Senate’s first session. My corresponding pdf is called “01 Senate Journal 1^st 1^st 1789.pdf”. Note that the former is not searchable—it’s just a string of images. Note also that it is incomplete; my version has a 10-page index that is in the original.

Example 2: missing tables in text renderings:

I’ve extracted p. 8 from both of these pdf files, one called “LOC pg 8.pdf” and the other (my version) called “WS pg 8.pdf”. If you’re at the LOC site looking at the image of page 8 and you want a text version of that page, what you get is found in the file called “LOC pg 8 text.docx” (which is a copy of what is found on line here). Note that the table of votes is entirely missing. Also missing are the two lines at the bottom, beginning “Sir: The Senate…”

Almost every such table is missing from the LOC text pages.

Example 3: garbled OCR:

I have found several instances where the OCR done by LOC results in garbled text. For example, the file called “WS pg 611.pdf” is extracted from my pdf of the Senate 13th Congress 3rd session. I’ve highlighted the relevant section. In the file called “3rd session of 13th Congress--Senate, Jan. 23 1815 pg 611 comparison.docx” the LOC text version of that page is at the top and below is the corresponding image of that part of the page. I have highlighted discrepancies.

I think the missing tables are the biggest problem.

Thanks for taking the time to get into the nitty gritty on this! BillSellers (talk) 14:37, 12 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps you don’t need any other examples, but I just discovered a serious error in the documents on the congress.gov site. If you go here to the 43^rd Congress, you’ll see under “Senate Journals” a link for “Special Session Mar 4, 1873 to Mar 26, 1873.” The target for this link is here but when you go to that page the calendar for the 1873 special session is blank and underneath the calendar there are no pdfs for the special session. Where is that special session? It can be found by going to the 42^nd Congress, here, but it’s not obvious because there are no active links for March 4, 1873 (the first day of that session). Note that there are two entries for March 1, 1873: one in the calendar for “3rd Session (1872-1873)” and one in the calendar for “Unknown Congressional Session (1871-1873)” but they both go to the same place, page 498, half past 5 o’clock on March 1, 1873, as shown here. Then if you enter 596 and go to that page, you come to the end of March 3, 1873 (here). Clicking the right arrow takes you to page 598. This is actually the beginning of the special session but the first page image (page 597) is missing. And if you try to find the text of the session, it is completely missing! What they’ve done is put the text of the 1^st session in as the text for the 3^rd session. BillSellers (talk) 18:42, 13 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

I have been trying to figure out how to format this page, tried both TOC and table formatting and I can never get it to look right. Help would be much appreciated. Prismdragon9 (talk) 18:11, 10 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Added a possible fix, but it might not be very good! Let me know what you think, and feel free to revert if anyone else gets any better ideas. Lastfalseact (talk) 19:39, 10 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

• I tried my hand at it too. Sorry Lastfalseact, I accidentally overwrote your version. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 19:42, 10 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

  No worries! It looks good :) Lastfalseact (talk) 19:45, 10 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

  It looks great, thank you! Prismdragon9 (talk) 05:07, 11 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hello, I am currently working on The Poems of Catullus and I am not sure how to format these sections of it. It seems like the single quotes at the beginning of each line indicate that it is a continued monologue, but should I include those in the proofread, and if so, how? Previous translators haven't included the linebreaks in other sections. Lastfalseact (talk) 19:24, 10 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

It seems that a recent discussion on a similar issue opted not to replicate them. Nighfidelity (talk) 19:29, 10 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Unfortunately, these are just inherent problems with the differences between print and Web media and there's no way to perfectly resolve these. Ultimately, we should err on the side of creating a document for digital media first and print second and our goal is to make a typographic reproduction over a photographic one. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:35, 10 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thank you both for your insight! Thanks to your input I ended up finishing proofreading except for that one pesky image... Well, either I'll get around to learning to do images or it'll sit around for a while. 18:47, 13 July 2026 (UTC) Lastfalseact (talk) 18:47, 13 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

 This section is considered resolved, for the purposes of archiving. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Lastfalseact (talk) 02:25, 14 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Sorry for asking for help again so soon, but I think this document is trying its best to frustrate me, with a 3-part table (or 3 different tables? It's clearly designed to fit across separate pages rather than continuously) on pages 48, 49, and 50, with 49 in particular having a very stubborn layout. I tried my best with the first page but my efforts probably resemble spaghetti code. I might need your help again, Wikisourcians. Prismdragon9 (talk) 06:58, 11 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

I think that the {{dotted cell}} template makes it simpler, so I tried to rework it with it. However, if you do not like it, feel free to revert. As for the table's span across pages, see Help:Page breaks#Tables across page breaks. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 09:01, 11 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

I've finally gotten the pages to look acceptable, so thanks a lot for your help! Prismdragon9 (talk) 13:00, 11 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Me translating this book word for word with Wiktionary and/or a French dictionary and machine translation is not going to work, so I ask for someone who knows the French language and English language inside and out, as I cannot do this alone. Angrythewikipedian (talk) 11:50, 11 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yes, please do not attempt to translate a work where you don't know that language and English as well. You can try to navigate Category:User fr and find users who are competent in French and may have the capacity to work on this. The only person whom I know off-hand is mon frere User:Yann. Additionally, as I recall, it has been standard on this wiki for a while that we don't host a translation of a work without there being a version of the original hosted on another subdomain. Has this work already been transcribed at fr: or possibly mul:? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:36, 11 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yes, this has been transcribed on French WS: fr:Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. @Angrythewikipedian: But I agree with Justin: do not try to translate a work of which you do not know the language. Yann (talk) 17:41, 11 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

In addition, this would be a huge undertaking. Translating 32 volumes with more than 70,000 articles is not a project for one person, no matter how enthusiastic they may be. The people who are involved in the Collaborative Translation Project of the Encyclopédie are academics with a specialties in 18th Century French history, literature, or culture. IMNSHO, doing this translation is best left to them rather than it being picked up here. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:54, 12 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

As mentioned, it's a huge project so this a huge ask for anyone, not a small favor. And there is basically zero value-add for a machine translation that can be done by just going to FR wikisource and click translate in a browser. MarkLSteadman (talk) 02:51, 16 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

I am editing with the plain text editor, using Vector Legacy 2010 side by side editing view. Prior to OpenSeaDragon, the editor displayed the edit and image panels side by side during 'Preview'.

In OpenSeaDragon, the column/panel width adjustment makes no difference, and on Preview, the original is in the next row below, and the current right panel is empty. Is there a method or preference to set the side-by-side layout ? and if not, which module controls this behavior in OpenSeaDragon? — ineuw (talk) 02:32, 12 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Er, you're supposed to still see a side-by-side layout. Maybe a screenshot? I'm not 100% sure I understand the issue you're reporting and how exactly it's related to preview.
On a hunch I'd blame it on one of your scripts maybe? — Alien  3
3 3 17:03, 12 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Alien333: Thanks for the reply. I was inactive the past couple of years in which period everything changed and improved, including OpenSeaDragon. This is a very old issue from the time it was introduced. But, with all the changes, it's best to post it first on their Github site with photos. ChatGPT analysis of the Mediawiki Proofread.js, indicates a possible anomaly. I will post the link here to the Github post. — ineuw (talk) 04:27, 22 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

I have some pdfs of DL Lives that, made earlier than now, begin with Contents listing individual sections by author; these are links that connect to the section in the pdf:

This is book 6: Lives of the Eminent Philosophers/Book VI

< Lives of the Eminent Philosophers Antisthenes Diogenes Monimus Onesicritus Crates Metrocles Hipparchia Menippus Menedemus Footnotes

They no longer work as links.

Has there been a change in the way the pages are now arranged for saving as PDFs? Portoer (talk) 03:14, 14 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

I came across Japan, a periodical with several sub-titles over the years. (See Google Books and HathiTrust.) It was published from 1917 to 1932. What should be the name here? TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 00:51, 16 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Japan (magazine) ? —Beleg Tâl (talk) 02:01, 16 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

• Beleg Tâl: My concern is this unrelated periodical, Japan Magazine. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 02:42, 16 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

  Personally, I think Japan (magazine) and Japan Magazine are acceptable as root pages for two unrelated periodicals, so long as they aren't both generally referred to as "Japan" nor as "Japan Magazine" (though I agree that it's not ideal) —Beleg Tâl (talk) 16:06, 16 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Does anyone know why most of the text is perma-black. I can't figure out what is forcing the text to be black. ToxicPea (talk) 06:07, 24 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Nevermind, figured it out.

 This section is considered resolved, for the purposes of archiving. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. ToxicPea (talk) 14:19, 29 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

This concerns: Index:Ricardo Essay on Profits 1815.djvu. When I'm on the index, I can click on page 14, and then I come on the page with the "Table". But when I click on the "return" button ( "/\", if you understand what I mean) I don't go to the index, but to a css-page. and I cannot click on the arrow buttons < or > for the previous and next page neither. Can anyone please explain this (and perhaps repair it)? Thanks, --Dick Bos (talk) 07:22, 24 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

I don't know why it does this, but I was able to determine that removing the link to Page:Ricardo Essay on Profits 1815.djvu/16 that is present on Index:Ricardo Essay on Profits 1815.djvu/styles.css causes the issue to stop happening —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:33, 24 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

@User:Beleg Tâl, thanks for that. @User:Eievie, I think that fixed it. --Dick Bos (talk) 20:19, 24 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hi all, I am currently proofreading the Index for Index:Straits Settlements Government Gazette (1889, Jan-Mar).pdf. The source file from the National Library Board (NLB) of Singapore is missing physical pages 35–39 (which corresponds to digital pages 41–44 in the current upload). Could anyone with access to alternate institutional archives or university microfilm networks help hunt down these missing pages? If we can find a clean scan of these pages, we can addt them to the file on Commons or host them as an appendix. Thank you! RAPTOR7762^{Whats up?} 15:00, 24 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

It appears that the pages were missing via historic loss as the placeholder pages aren't artificial pages. That means it;'s unlikely NLB might still hold the missing pages RAPTOR7762^{Whats up?} 15:30, 24 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hi all,

I have just checked the microfilms NL 1020 / NL 1021 at National Archives Singapore's Website. They have indeed skipped pages 35-39, confirming that this is a historic loss. I have emailed NAS and NLB regarding this, so i hope they will get back to me with a reply soon RAPTOR7762^{Whats up?} 14:24, 28 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hi all, unfortunately, they do not have pages 35-39 of this gazette in their digital microfilm collection. Additionally, they do not have separate copies (and presumably, the master copy). This is their reply:

Thank you for your email. I have checked the duplicate microfilm copy held at the National Library, and unfortunately, pages 35–39 are also missing. We do not have separate copies under the Legal Deposit collection. My apologies for this inconvenience. I hope you are able to access the missing pages through the international volunteer network. Thank you.

Hi Administrator @Beleg Tâl, and experienced user @ToxicPea, and many other users out there, do y'all have any access to intellectual material, e.g. frok the British National Archives, British Libraries, universities, etc.? Thanks! RAPTOR7762^{Whats up?} 09:36, 31 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hello, I’m trying to download the book export for this page: Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States/The Constitution The export hangs for several minutes and then fails with: “502 Proxy Error, Reason: Error reading from remote server” This happens consistently when trying to export the full book. It appears to be a timeout or backend/export-server issue. Commenton (talk) 01:14, 29 July 2026 (UTC)Reply