You can check out documents in a whole new way beginning today at ydr.com.
For some time we’ve compiled original documents used in our reporting in the Full Disclosure page’s “reading room.” We’ll still do that. But the documents there are one-dimensional PDFs — you open the document, read it, and close it.
Now, using a service provided by DocumentCloud, we can display annotated documents for the first time. That means, for example, that we can help you navigate through a document by highlighting key parts or topics, much as you’d use a highlighter pen to mark key passages in a book or paper you’re working with.
Those annotations also show up as a list in a right-hand navigation bar when the document is viewed at full size, so you can instantly see topics of interest.
You can also search for terms in the document; and the DocumentCloud presentation allows you to turn a PDF into text, so you can cut-and-paste parts that are of interest — something you can’t readily do with a PDF.
There are two documents on ydr.com in the DocumentCloud service today (we’ll be doing many more as time goes on):
- One of the Pennsylvania anti-terrorism bulletins produced by former York police officer Mike Perelman’s company. Those were the documents Gov. Rendell criticized two weeks ago before he ended the state’s contract with Perelman. The one online mentions York County-area hydroelectric plants. You can view all the bulletins that mention York County places by going to the reading room. They are collected there via another document service, Scribd.
- The grand jury indictment of former York Rep. Stephen Stetler. That one has several notes in it.
Let us know how the DocumentCloud presentation works for you, or if you encounter any problems with it.
