I’m currently in the process of revamping the Bausch & Lomb manual and catalog library in an effort to make the documents more useful. To begin with each document is going to have searchable text embedded in the PDF. This wont have any real impact on the readability of the documents (unless of course one is using a reader which supports direct viewing of embedded text) though it will allow for one to copy and paste from the file. It will also, and this is the primary motivation for the effort, allow for one to search the document.

It’s a slow process and requires some significant time for each document. Thankfully, once it’s done it’s done and the files will be more available than ever as search engines and web-crawlers will begin to read the files and begin offering them up among the results of ones favorite search engine.

As the effort progresses the format of the existing library page (and it’s current files) will remain unchanged. Instead the new documents will be placed on an alternate library page with an entirely text based format that will not involve squinting at 100 pixel wide thumbnails.