"Search process for Nafziger Collection" Topic

I posted this humble attempt to be helpful at:

TMP link

I then realized it was already too late and might not be noticed. So I am posting as a new topic in case it might prove useful to anyone.

I make no specific claims about what follows, it is simply a recounting of my learning process in downloading and manipulating these massive archives. If anyone benefits from what follows then it was worth the time posting it.

Those who have may already advanced (far) beyond my efforts please post here so others might save some time and frustration…

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Hello, I have already been down that slippery slope a couple of days ago. It was too early in the day, I was not alert and trying to speaker phone multi-task at the same time. Afraid I frustrated a few kind souls here.

The page for "Finding Aid" is below. Nearly 400 pages seems huge but it d/ls in only a minute or two. You must have this "finding aid" in order the utilize the massive archive efficiently.

Nafziger orders of battle collection : finding aid.

link

Then you select the *.zip you are interested in, say:

Napoleonics (1792-1815) (107.5 MB ZIP)

So far my system, such as it is, first get the "Finding Aid" open in a separate PDF reader window (or tab). Then type the year (e.g. 1807) into the "Find" window on your reader that will get you to the general area of the 1807 campaign. Select what you want, say 807BAF is the Prussian OB at Eylau.

Switch from the "Finding List" window to the open "Napoleonics (1792-1815)" window and use <ctr>-F "807BAF" and you will find it.

Be warned, depending on your system & printer configuration printing these PDFs can be very, very slow; up to three or four minutes per page. There are ways to (try to) speed up the process. Google something like "PDF printing speed" as a starting point.

But, until you have a feel for how fast the printing process might be for you, do not simply try to print a file with dozens of pages, if you are unlucky you might be in for an hour or two of slow printing.

Perhaps someone here has suggestions or solutions for that problem. I haven't had time to pursue it too far yet.

Good luck…

I found the best way to manage and use the files was to do so as word documents not pdf.

I do not have suitable tools on my pc to manage, search within and extract from pdf files and have found the same slow print issues before. So now I always convert pdf files to word format using "e-pdf to word converter" from:
e-pdfconverter.com

Thankfully it works in batch format as well as individual files.

RobH:

Thankfully it works in batch format as well as individual files.

Hadn't come across that yet, thanks. I'd always prefer to work in Word rather than an Adobe application like PageMaker, etc.

This is an incredible collection of data. Unfortunately it is cataloged is such a way as to be impenetrable. Rob.

Another option for finding O.B.s is the lists that were on Mr. Nafziger's site before he gave everything to the CARL site.

Using The Wayback Machine is the following page and lists:
link

Cliff

Alternatively, just download the Napoleonic OOB's as a single folder from here:

link

I've been working on improving the "finder" that CARL provides for these files. The existing one is the Excel file into which they entered the data converted into a PDF file. Unfortunately, they never seem to have sorted the complete file before they converted it. Thus, there are Napoleonic files in at least 3 different places in the 500+ page document. This is not efficient.

So I downloaded the finder and had a friend of mine convert it back into an Excel file, cleaned up some weird formatting and sorted it by the ID codes that George used to index them. Since the first 3 characters of the code give the year, sorting the file by this puts them into yearly order. Then I made copies of it and started sorting it by war, by deleting anything that didn't fit. So for the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars I cut out all the data for codes lower than "792" and higher than "815". Then I sorted it by year for good measure in the same way.

I've had some success decrypting the rest of the 7-digit code. The 4th digit identifies nationality, mostly. There are a bunch of WW2 Allied OBs for various parts of the Pacific War that are coded "P" for instance. But it's usually nationality.

The fifth digit is usually the month, coded A-L, but things like official TOE's and OBs that report over a period seem to get their own codes.

Digit 6 makes little sense to me. It seems to refer to arm of service some times, level of OB at other times, and sometimes I can't fathom what it means.

The 7th digit is used to individualize OBs that have the same first 6 characters. So if there are multiple OBs for the 4th Panzer Army in October of 1942, the first will be "A", second "B", etc.

One of the great things about having all this in Excel is that I can cut the parts of the code into separate fields and then sort by them. This allows one to put all the Russian OBs for October in the same place. They are usually in the same place in the CARL finder app, but not reliably enough for my comfort.

If anyone else wants to see what I'm up to, drop me a line here or "semonyenko" at "gmail.com." The files are Excel 2007, if you need another format tell me, but I can't guarantee that the hyperlinks will work. My goal is to get these worked up to a point that I can send it back to CARL and they can post them to help people find what they're looking for more directly. If anyone feels like throwing some cut and paste time into the project I'm sure I'd appreciate the help.

Agreed that the collection is both immensely useful, and completely unworkable as is.

At least on unix, its a simple matter of converting the mass of PDFs to text from the command line (ie – pdf2txt *.pdf does it in 1 pass)

This provides a useful set of text files that are easy to search through. (but again – easy to search through if you are on a unix box .. which has a huge wealth of text manipulation tools on the command line).

I am in the process of writing a parser to take original Nafziger OOB files as input, and generate JSON format structured data as output. Many of the OOB files work already, but I want to be able to convert them all eventually.

These JSON format structured data files have many uses … one of which is obviously feeding them directly into a battle management system.

In an ideal world, you could create a scenario of any of the current crop of computer moderated rules by simply loading a couple of Nafziger files into the system.

Apologies for the threadomancy.

Is the excel file of the finder available anywhere?

Is the excel file of the finder available anywhere?

Email me at semonyenko-at-gmail.com. Do you want the whole thing, or certain parts (e.g., Napoleonics, WW2)?

The whole thing please. Email on its way, ta.

Funny. Never had a problem.

I downloaded the pdf listing to my iPad, do a pdf search for what I want, then go to the website with the file name. The number order is easy to use. I always found what I wanted. Simple and easy for me.

My only caveat is the pdf search takes a little time because the file is big.

The OOB`s are sometimes difficult to identify… email me at: contact@grandmanoeuvre.co.uk
if you would like an index showing file names and descriptions eg:
805KXH – Baden Forces, 9 November 1805

I think it`s the complete index, not just Napoleonics.