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Automatically Make a Daily PDF of Your Favourite Newspapers
Posted by Adam Pash at 6:00 AM on April 19, 2008
The 37signals weblog highlights an Automator workflow that downloads the front pages of popular newspapers from previously mentioned web site Newseum and combines them into one consolidated PDF you can print off and read on your daily commute. The script downloads each front page from Newseum, then combines them into one master PDF. As TUAW suggests, you could automate this one step further by setting the workflow to run daily with iCal.
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
lausley
Posted 6:43 AM 19/4/08
Sorry, but the thought of daily printing and disposing of this much paper just to absorb a bit of (what nowadays seems to qualify as)"news" just makes me cringe.
Let's get some creativity flowing with a more eco-friendly alternative.
lausley
edosan
Posted 6:35 AM 19/4/08
Wow -- people still read newspapers? I had no idea.
Now, if I could do this to print out daily comics from the paper, that would be useful.
edosan
pixelkid
Posted 6:27 AM 19/4/08
What about us in the UK! :p
pixelkid
da5id_nz
Posted 7:38 AM 19/4/08
Another very good site which carries digital replicas of actual newspapers (worldwide!) is Press Display. Choose your country and then newspaper from the left (500 newspapers from 37 countries). If you don't subscribe, you only get to see the front page. You can sign up to a free plan that gives you access to two articles a day, or a $9.95 plan that gives you access to 31 papers a month, or a $29.95 unlimited plan.
There's also a program you can download called Pressreader for your Windows, Mac, or Windows smartphone to read issues offline.
da5id_nz
graffiksguru
Posted 7:23 AM 19/4/08
Besides, its Mac only
graffiksguru
jenheta
Posted 7:09 AM 19/4/08
Agreed. It is a waste of time (even if it is a matter of seconds), material and cooliness.
Printing relatively old first page crap does not make sense. Keep it in PDF format, alltogether with the rest of the News and read it in full using your cell, PDA, whatever.
jenheta
RGP
Posted 8:36 AM 19/4/08
whats a newspaper?
RGP
Craig
Posted 8:24 AM 19/4/08
I sure appreciate this. Thanks.
Craig
Deprong Mori
Posted 9:15 AM 19/4/08
It's a paper version of the Internet that you read at a cafe or barber shop.
They're also useful for lining birdcages and starting charcoal chimneys for BBQ grilling.
Deprong Mori
Duane
Posted 10:16 AM 19/4/08
Interesting idea, and can be useful for some people. I see two problems with it though:
1) It's Mac only - and it seems not even all Macs.
2) It's a waste of paper.
As I said, good for some people, but I just don't see it being widely used. Most papers that have an online version, also provide an RSS feed, which can be used by anyone with internet access.
Duane
tcolberg
Posted 9:56 AM 19/4/08
@lausley: Well, if you had a PDA or other portable electronic device that could read PDF, this might be pretty useful and not at all bad for the environment.
tcolberg
Rick Lobrecht
Posted 11:48 AM 19/4/08
@edosan:
Check out [www.tapestrycomics.com] They have RSS feeds for a ton of comics (most I've never heard of, but they do have Dilbert.)
Rick Lobrecht
tyojohn
Posted 2:00 AM 20/4/08
I've been playing with this and the even better version at
[www.edge14.com]
which automatically trashes the pdf files so they do not pile up.
This is extremely convenient.
Web news is good, but newspapers are excellent, too.
If you want to add PDFs for comics, just modify the url's in the script.
tyojohn