Tech issue: Non printable characters when downloading PDF - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
Tech issue: Non printable characters when downloading PDF
Hi. I'm not sure I'm posting this is the right forum. If I'm not, just point me toward the right place and I'll fix it.
I subscribed to the Disney Cruise Live yesterday, and I downloaded teh book in pdf so that my son could read it. I also put a copy on my tablet, so I can carry it around with me.
The pdf is almost unreadable in places -- symbols in places of some characters (hyphens, for examples). There are large blank spaces in sentences that I think are links in the Live book.
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
Do you really need to print out the book? Did you know that you can give your access info to your son so he can read it on his computer or device? You can both make comments, bookmark, etc., that way.
If you still want a hard copy, but you don't need every single page, look at the tools menu on the righthand side of the page you're on. There you'll see "Print-Friendly Page". Using that will print the page just as you see it. However, since it's primarily a digital version, some of the pages will actually be 2 or even 3 page long (especially the port excursions pages--those are huge).
I think sharing the digital version should take care of most of your needs, though. Does this work for you?
PS: this is exactly the right place to post that question!
I wasn't looking to print the book -- and the issue comes from the fact that I am sharing the digital version.
I downloaded the pdf onto his tablet and mine, but the downloaded ebook is full of non-printable characters, which make it very hard to read. Our tablets only have wifi, so using the live version isn't an option for those.
I wasn't looking to print the book -- and the issue comes from the fact that I am sharing the digital version.
I downloaded the pdf onto his tablet and mine, but the downloaded ebook is full of non-printable characters, which make it very hard to read. Our tablets only have wifi, so using the live version isn't an option for those.
[/IMG]
I see--those characters are annoying, and you won't have wi-fi on the ship.
Can you just use the wi-fi and the LIVE! Guide for planning, and then print out the pages you need to take with you (using the print-friendly pages function)? Or do you spend a lot of time away from wi-fi?
If this doesn't work, I'll ask Jennifer to address your question, so please let me know.
I hope not, but this looks like a similar problem with how articles appeared on the boards formerly.
Those were annoying to read because apostrophes and quotation marks appeared as nonsense characters.
Jennifer tried but was only able to resolve the problem, she said, by posting a link to the article here on the boards. I don't know why that was a getaround, nor perhaps does she, but it worked.
Unfortunately, something similar would hardly fix your difficulty.
__________________
“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.” —Winnie-the-Pooh
I see--those characters are annoying, and you won't have wi-fi on the ship.
Can you just use the wi-fi and the LIVE! Guide for planning, and then print out the pages you need to take with you (using the print-friendly pages function)? Or do you spend a lot of time away from wi-fi?
If this doesn't work, I'll ask Jennifer to address your question, so please let me know.
I do intend to use the live guide for planning. But if the functionality is there to download the book, it should be a clean copy of the book -- especially when I'm going to be handing that book to a minor so he can pick what excursions he'd like us to try and reserve.
I do intend to use the live guide for planning. But if the functionality is there to download the book, it should be a clean copy of the book -- especially when I'm going to be handing that book to a minor so he can pick what excursions he'd like us to try and reserve.
Thanks!
Has Jennifer been able to take a look? I imagine her time is at a premium.
Has Jennifer been able to take a look? I imagine her time is at a premium.
I'm sorry, I didn't ask because I was a little confused--my bad! So please help me get my head straight on what you're looking for.
Is it that you want to have a copy of the guide in PDF form, without the odd symbols? It was designed primarily as an interactive guide, not a book, so the PDF is going to have some odd things here and there, and I don't think that can be helped--the HTML codes don't translate well, I guess.
So are you unable to use wi-fi to do your planning with the actual LIVE! Guide?
I'll go ahead and ask Jennifer to look at your question. I hope we can find a way for you get what you need.
I edited the page you included a screenshot for, saved it, and downloaded it again -- this time the question-mark boxes are gone. I'm not sure what is causing it to appear on some pages and not others. I am now aware of it, however, and I will go through each page to identify and fix the issues. As this is a rather large book, I beg your patience while I work on this.
The good news is that this is not a widespread issue -- I'm on page 127 and I haven't found a recurrence yet. I will continue looking and I will fix as I find them.
I edited the page you included a screenshot for, saved it, and downloaded it again -- this time the question-mark boxes are gone. I'm not sure what is causing it to appear on some pages and not others. I am now aware of it, however, and I will go through each page to identify and fix the issues. As this is a rather large book, I beg your patience while I work on this.
The good news is that this is not a widespread issue -- I'm on page 127 and I haven't found a recurrence yet. I will continue looking and I will fix as I find them.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention!
You're welcome! I imagine there aren't a lot of people who are looking to download the book so their kids can read it. (Weirdo, that's me! )
I've done a bit of prepping manuscripts for making ebooks -- it stinks when the underlying code doesn't want to play nice (especially when you didn't even know the code was there!)