An example of one of Peter Watson's Valuation transcripts for Herne Bay in Word document format is attached to this post. It comprises separate tables, one for each property in the 1910 Valuation, interspersed by some images to help remind about the property. For convenience each document contains a limited number of properties (eg 100), and this example shows just a few.
Each table has the following data for each property:
- ValuationID (when preceded by V this is used as featureid)
- Situation
- Description (which for technical reasons internally we call Designation)
- Gross Value (£ and optionally shillings and pence)
- Occupier
- Former Sale - the date the property was last sold, and hopefully the amount of sale, + additional cost (eg if it was bought as land, then a house built in it)
- [Note this is displayed/stored after Owner in M4OPS]
- Owner
- Particulars
Broadly speaking the stages of the process are:
- Manipulate the Word Documents to prepare a single table of data
- Convert this table into a list of features for M4OPS
- Add the All Features layer
- Upload and compile
- Georeference the Features
Manipulate the Word Documents to prepare a single table of data:
- In Word, create a new landscape document
- Empty the document, headers and footers of all content
- For each transcript document: Select all, copy and paste onto the end of this landscape document (selecting the default - destination theme)
- To remove header lines: Select all of style Title and delete
- Use Replace All various times:
- Images: ^g to null
- Manual line breaks: ^l to space
- Tabs: ^t to space
- Semicolons: ; to #semicolon#
- (Matching Case:) Description or description to #Dscn# or #dscn# (technical problem!)
- Other special characters/words may need converting:
- (These are all defined in the CSV2HTMLConvsArray in M4OPS.json)
- non-breaking space (^s) to #nbsp#
- less than or greater than to #lt# or #gt#
- ampersand to #amp#
- single or double quotation mark to #apos# or #quot#
- cent, pound, yen, euro to #cent#, #pound#, #yen#, #euro#
- copyright (©) or registered trademark (®) to #copy# or #reg#
- [(unnecessary?)Extra paras: ^p^p to ^p – repeat until 0 (any left delete manually)]
- Single paras: ^p to null
- Select all, copy and paste to another blank landscape document as text only
- Select all and insert table (Convert: paragraphs, 5 columns, Autofit contents)
- Check for changes in pattern, and for each: Undo, adjust, redo
- [eg in the attached document there is an issue after id 63]
- Delete the blank column (must be narrow if it is empty)
- Convert to text (separate text with tabs)
- Select all and insert table (Convert: tabs, 8 columns, Autofit contents) – if not 8 then undo, resolve issue, and redo
- Save the document
Convert this table into a list of features for M4OPS:
- Insert 4 (blank) columns to the right of the table (these fields will be filled by geometries)
- (At this point, if relevant, transfer any geometry cells from an existing features.csv file)
- Check there are no semicolons in the document
- Convert to text (separate text with semicolons)
- Replace ;space by ;
- Replace ^p by ^pV (thereby preceding each id by the letter V)
- ensure the first line has a V at the start
- Replace V^p by null (thereby removing most spurious lines)
- remove any (last?) line(s) with just a V on them
- If there is no existing Features.csv text file then:
- Select all, copy and paste into a blank text file
- Copy the following string and paste it as a new line at the beginning of this file
- featureid;Situation;Designation;GrossValue;Occupier;FormerSale;Owner;Particulars;Lon(X);Lat(Y);GeomType;GeomCoords
- Under this header line enter a blank line and a line starting Comment, with the date etc
- Save the file as Features.csv
- If there is an existing Features.csv text file then:
- Open this existing Features.csv text file and make sure that:
- it has been updated with all georeferencing (by downloading from M4OPS)
- it's fields are all in the same order as the list above
- In the file you have been processing, select all, copy and paste (append) them to the existing Features.csv text file
See
Compiling Features for the next stage.
