Whitening background of Gutenberg texts

[BrizeCrize]

Anybody know how to change the (often brownish) background color of the Gutenberg texts? I've found white background on other versions (PDF, etc) but they are often riddled with scanning errors, so I prefer to use the main (HTML?) version.

Mine eyes thank you,
Brize Crize

[TriciaG]

Could you provide an example?

[redrun]

I've seen one or two that were far worse (much darker brown, making the black text all but unreadable), but here's one with a beige background on the HTML options:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6340

The good news is, your internet browser almost certainly has a simplified "reader view" that shows everything as black on white, or at least much closer to it. How to access that depends which program you use to access the internet.

Chrome is what most folks use. It does have this feature, but it takes a minute or three to turn it on for the first time:
https://www.howtogeek.com/423643/how-to-use-google-chromes-hidden-reader-mode/
After that, it should be as easy as the rest.

If you use Edge, Safari, Firefox, etc., then look for either a "page" or "book" icon at the end of the address bar. Click it to switch to Reader View, and again to switch back. Some pictures here:
https://lifehacker.com/how-to-use-your-browsers-reader-mode-to-actually-read-w-1847480062

[Boomcoach]

That was a pretty dark background. Slightly off-white is usually better than stark white to avoid eye fatigue, YMMV, but that page is annoyingly dark.

[Penumbra]

Or...in windows you can copy and paste the entire text to (say) a word document on your local computer. That is, highlight the text (^A), copy to the clipboard (^C) , open a new word document, and paste the text into it (^V).

[SowasVon]

Anybody know how to change the (often brownish) background color of the Gutenberg texts?

You could also edit the page's HTML code. It will set the background to white until you reload the page.
These are the instructions for Firefox, but Chrome and Edge also have this function and I assume it should work roughly the same:

1. Right-click somewhere on the background where there's no text.

2. In the context menu, click Inspect (Q).
>> At the bottom of the page, an inspector window with the HTML code of the website opens.

3. Above the code, type into the search bar: background
>> This should select the first block of code that contains the word.

4. Double-click the selected text.
>> The text gets put into a more orderly layout and you can now edit it.

5. In the block of text, locate: background: #faebd0; and change it to background: #ffffff;
(at least #faebd0 is the code in redrun's example - whatever else it is, it should be at the very beginning of the text block and have six digits)

6. Click anywhere outside of the block of text.

7. Close the inspector window (X button top right).

Addendum:
#ffffff is the code for pure white. If you feel like messing around with other colours, here's a page with more codes:
https://html-color.codes/
E.g. ivory is #fffff0 (since off-white being good for reading was mentioned in a previous post in this thread ).

[BrizeCrize]

You could also edit the page's HTML code. It will set the background to white until you reload the page.
These are the instructions for Firefox, but Chrome and Edge also have this function and I assume it should work roughly the same:

1. Right-click somewhere on the background where there's no text.

2. In the context menu, click Inspect (Q).
>> At the bottom of the page, an inspector window with the HTML code of the website opens.

3. Above the code, type into the search bar: background
>> This should select the first block of code that contains the word.

4. Double-click the selected text.
>> The text gets put into a more orderly layout and you can now edit it.

5. In the block of text, locate: background: #faebd0; and change it to background: #ffffff;
(at least #faebd0 is the code in redrun's example - whatever else it is, it should be at the very beginning of the text block and have six digits)

6. Click anywhere outside of the block of text.

7. Close the inspector window (X button top right).

Addendum:
#ffffff is the code for pure white. If you feel like messing around with other colours, here's a page with more codes:
https://html-color.codes/
E.g. ivory is #fffff0 (since off-white being good for reading was mentioned in a previous post in this thread ).

Good information all! I particularly enjoyed this last one (above) as it made me feel like an 'insider' peeking behind the scenes. All to no avail, however, at least on 'Mosquitos', my current project, as it stays brownish despite my #ffffff command. (Even has a exclamation point inside a 'caution' icon with 'webkit user select' crossed out so it KNOWS I am trying to change it, but ignores me.). Oh well, good information anyway, the only time you learn anything on these computers is when you delve into modifying something, so I'll remember that #ffffff code for future reference. Thanks all!.

[redrun]

Ahh, I see the trouble. Any of our recommendations would have worked on the HTML version of a Gutenberg text, but the project actually uses an Archive.org scan:
https://archive.org/details/mosquitoes0000faul_y7t0/page/n9/mode/1up

What you see there is a web page that loads up the scanned PDF - same browned pages, same scanning errors. Changing the background of the web page doesn't affect the scan, just the stuff around and behind the scan.

There's a text-only version you can download, but that's made by automation and doesn't have the rounds of proofing and correction that Gutenberg would do.

[BrizeCrize]

Ahh, I see the trouble. Any of our recommendations would have worked on the HTML version of a Gutenberg text, but the project actually uses an Archive.org scan:
https://archive.org/details/mosquitoes0000faul_y7t0/page/n9/mode/1up

What you see there is a web page that loads up the scanned PDF - same browned pages, same scanning errors. Changing the background of the web page doesn't affect the scan, just the stuff around and behind the scan.

There's a text-only version you can download, but that's made by automation and doesn't have the rounds of proofing and correction that Gutenberg would do.

Thanks, Redrun, for that clarification...that's sort of what my gut feeling was - that this was just a picture (i.e. scan) of an old (brownish paged) book and turning into white paged one was not a simple matter. I'll keep plugging along, maybe my eyes will adjust and at least I know I have the correct words in front of me. Stopping to check on words that don't seem right (or missing them altogether) is maddening as well.

[Rapunzelina]

Maybe this would work: download the pdf of the scanned book, open it and then print it (ctrl+P), selecting "Microsoft Print to PDF" in black and white.
I know my instructions are vague, but I'm hoping redrun or someone else will see that, and if the idea is promising, they'll give better instructions

Edit: oh, here's an image of the Print Window:
https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/dx-dc/uk/en/resources/pdf-to-b-w/PDF-Grayscale-2.png.img.png

If this makes the brown into gray, which doesn't really help, there might be an option in the "Properties" or "Advanced" for just black and white, and not gray-scale?

[TriciaG]

I don't have Microsoft Print to PDF but PDF Creator instead. I downloaded the PDF and tried printing to PDF as "black & white". No matter what I tried in the settings, it previewed as grayscale (still a dark background).

[redrun]

Yes, the "black and white" setting is a common shorthand for "grayscale", and doesn't usually adjust the brightness to actual black and white.

But there are PDF programs that let you adjust the way it shows you a PDF, like this one (freely available, open source):
https://yacreader.com/features

If you'd like to keep your PDF reader, you can use some other tools to change the file and open the new version. It seems that some scanning software could do this, but I don't know of one for sure. If you'd like to peek again behind the curtain, there are some examples of doing this with a "command-line" tool here:
https://superuser.com/questions/622950/is-there-a-way-to-increase-the-contrast-of-a-pdf-that-was-created-by-scanning-a
That doesn't seem hard once you know how to do it, but is far outside most folks' experience with computers.

[Peter Why]

Am I misunderstanding the problem? Given the html version of the text, I selected all (CTRL-A), copied (CTRL-C), and pasted into Notepad++. Saved the file, opened with a word processor (LibreOffice), and changed the font to suit me (Times 14 point). This gave me the text as black on white.

Peter

[TriciaG]

Am I misunderstanding the problem? Given the html version of the text, I selected all (CTRL-A), copied (CTRL-C), and pasted into Notepad++. Saved the file, opened with a word processor (LibreOffice), and changed the font to suit me (Times 14 point). This gave me the text as black on white.

Peter

In this case, while the OP talks about a Gutenberg text, it isn't one. It's an Archive PDF text scan.

[Peter Why]

Thanks, Tricia ... I misunderstood.

EDIT: ... Though apparently you could do the same thing with a pdf if you're using Adobe or Apple View: https://kipkis.com/Efficiently_Select_All_the_Text_in_a_PDF_Document

Peter