wrandtkeflvc
commented
7 years ago I looked at changing this setting: In Islandora -> "Solution pack configuration" -> "Paged Content Module" -> Then under "PDF Paged Content Ingest Settings" delete paths for "pdfinfo" and for "pdftotext".
I changed the settings on the fiu-test site and uploaded some objects. Changing this setting does remove the upload PDF screen from the paged objects (book and newspaper issue). I uploaded test cases on the fiu-test site, and datastreams for PDF objects were identical. I only uploaded paged objects and PDFs.
Starting with Islandora version 1.6 which FLVC upgraded to in May 2016, the Islandora software allows uploading a PDF for any paged content.
If the person uploads a PDF for a paged object, then Islandora will convert it to high resolution TIF files. Islandora converts to high resolution TIF regardless of what format or resolution image is embedded in the original file. So, a small PDF with embedded .jpg objects will be converted to a series of .tif files and may take up much more storage space. When we've tested uploading Book objects as PDF, if there are many pages, this was very processing heavy and we don't want people to do it. This also tends to mean automatic reformatting, and maybe elevating derivative files over the originals.
We don't want people to upload PDF for paged objects.
When using the GUI to make an Islandora Newspaper Issue Content Model object or a Book object, the person clicks through the metadata form, then clicks through a screen to "Upload PDF", then creates the object, but does not click through a screen to upload images of pages before creating the object.
The problem is that when someone uses the GUI to make these, the person has to click through that "Upload PDF" screen. But in order to upload a zipped file of images of pages (what we want people to do), the person has to first create the object, not upload the PDF on that "Upload PDF" screen, then go in and edit the object and upload zipped pages. In other words, there is no way to upload images of pages when creating the object. Instead the person creates the object, clicks "Ingest" (ie. "Save"), then has to click back in and edit the object add images of pages.
Based on questions from end users, users think a PDF is the desired input, and at least some have begun to plan digitization projects with a workflow of going to PDF in order to go to paged object.
I think we should remove this "Upload PDF" screen for Book objects and for Newspaper Issue objects. It's confusing for users. We should make it more clicks not fewer to do something if we expect people not to do it.