Replies

1. 
   MBerger | Jan 29, 2007 06:49pm | #1

   We hear this question a lot, and we're in the process of coming up with a series of improvements to our online index and site search, but I have one workaround that may be useful to you in the meantime.

   It's a really ugly solution, and it is not endorsed by my cohorts at Fine Woodworking. However, I find it useful and you might to.

   There is an HTML page for every issue table of contents (TOC) in our archive:

   Issue 188: http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/store/pages/fw_toc_188.asp

   If you manually change the number at the end (always use a three-digit number), you can one by one go through each issue.

   Issue 21: http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/store/pages/fw_toc_021.asp

   Cut an paste each TOC into a word document and it becomes searchable.

   Like I said, ugly, but it should do the trick.

   Matt Berger
   Fine Woodworking

    

1. 
   Toolfreak | Jan 29, 2007 07:03pm | #2

   Thanks! Ugly or not I will do it. I have only been a subscriber for almost 2 years to your magazine and I wished I had been taking it since its creation. I have and still subscribe to PWW, WWJ, Wood since the mid 80's but FWW is by far the best for me. I have bought a lot of the older issues at estate sales, and other places and they are hard to put down, the more I look at them the more articles I find that capture my attention, and I am now a loyal subscriber.

   Thanks,

   Mike Francis

    - Toolfreak

2. 
   forestgirl | Jan 29, 2007 07:47pm | #3

   Hey, Matt, good news that improvements are in the future.  Are the improvement areas based on complaints you've gotten?  Is there still time to get input on specific problems from us'ns?forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-) 

1. 
   MBerger | Jan 29, 2007 07:53pm | #4

   Please continue to offer suggestions. We are in brainstorm mode right now so there's still time to voice your opinions. This is just as troubling to us editors as it is to all you readers so please don't be too harsh.

   Last week I spoke at the DuPage Woodworkers Club just south of Chicago and searching the archives was by far the number one topic of discussion.

   - Matt

   Edited 1/29/2007 12:08 pm ET by MBerger

1. 
   forestgirl | Jan 29, 2007 09:18pm | #6

   OK!  #1 priority after assembling this storage building (still inserting Tab A into Slot B hah hah) will be organizing thoughts about the search.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-) 

2. 
   EdHarrison | Jan 30, 2007 03:27am | #8

   THe "book" spiral-bound index that was published for issues 1-100 made a lot of sense to me, Matt.  It was well put-together and comprehensive.  For instance, if I want to find all of the articles written by Jon Arno in issues 1-100, it is extremely easy with the book.  I've got a bookshelf with all of the issues of FWW ever published, so the whole experience of searching for articles is manual.  I, for one, hope that you publish a companion index to issues 101-200, though I realize that from your perspective, it might hurt your internet content sales.

    

1. 
   MBerger | Jan 30, 2007 03:28pm | #9

   Thanks for the recommendation, Ed. Printing a complete index really has nothing to do with Web subscription sales. The two are seperate issues. The Web is for people who DON'T have 30 years of back issues but want access to all those articles, whereas an index is for those tens of thousands of magazine subscribers who DO have 30 years of back issues and want to be able to easily search them.We recognize the need for both. Unfortunately, our Online Index is less than ideal given that it can only handle single keyword searches and is impossible to view in its entirety.

2. 
   KiddervilleAcres | Feb 03, 2007 04:55pm | #10

   Matt,

   Just off the top of my head, I would recommend that the index be in a somewhat universal format.  To that end MS Word comes to mind.  It is easily converted to other formats. 

   The downside of Word is when searching, the results are viewed one at a time instead of a list of occurrences and the document could get quite voluminous.  The upside is that it would allow you to kill two birds with one stone, parenthetically speaking of course.

   Regards,

    

    Bob @ Kidderville Acres

   Kidderville, NH

    

    

   A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!

2. 
   Bill_Anderson | Jan 29, 2007 08:26pm | #5

   I have indexed FW plus about 15 or so other woodworking mags for about 10-15 years using a program called Reference Manager which is a bibliographic database program.  I can search references by an unlimited combination of parameters (numerous keywords, year, author, title, etc, etc).  This is vastly superior to the indices that one gets at the year-end or even that one finds online since in those cases there are usually only options for one or two keywords.  I will be happy to do searches for anyone and provide a reference list for a minimal fee.  I will send youthe search, and if you are happy, you can send the fee.

3. 
   BenM | Jan 29, 2007 09:41pm | #7

   Here is an Excel spreadsheet for all issues up to August 2006.