Help
Reducing the number of results by refining with filters
Correcting the electronically translated text
Search Tips
If your search does not produce the expected results try:
- Making sure all words are spelled correctly
- Alternative spellings, particularly with personal and place names
- Shorter keywords and/or use wildcards or truncation
- Fewer keywords
- More general keywords
- The advanced search function
- Removing punctuation from the search terms (e.g. replace "2/32nd" with "232nd" or "O'Reilly" with "OReilly")
(Also remember that the Newspaper Beta service is not comprehensive in date or title range).
Some of the specific search syntaxes that can be used in the simple search box are:
Wildcard and truncation searches |
You may specify wild cards matches with an * or use and * to truncate word endings, eg:
|
| Phrase searches | Enclose search terms in quotes, eg: |
| Date searches | To search for a date simply enter a date in the search box.
Articles containing the date in the heading or text will be retrieved
but you will also be given the option to search for articles published
on that date eg:
|
| Boolean searches | You may use AND, OR and NOT and brackets to create boolean expressions. You can use a minus sign next to the word in place of NOT, eg: |
Relevance ranking and sorting
By default the results are sorted by relevance, the rules for which are available at: http://www.nla.gov.au/ndp/project_details/documents/ANDP_Relevancy_ranking.pdf. Results can also be sorted by ascending or descending date.
Searching for images
To restrict your results to article with images and to a specific image type, perform a search as normal. Once you have your search results, on the left hand side of the results list there is a 'refine' area with pre-defined groups for refining your search. Find 'by Illustrated' and select 'Illustrated'. Once the page has refreshed, select the type of image you are seeking (e.g. photo) under 'by Illustration Type' in the refine area.
As display advertisements often do not contain searchable text, some of these articles will only be accessible by browsing. Once these articles have been found tags (such as the company name) can be used to make them easier to find in future.
Reducing number of results by refining with filters
On the left hand side of the results list, there is a 'refine' option. The results are listed in predefined groups. These groups are the filters and can be used to refine your search. Some of these categories, such as date and illustration, allow you to drill down further. These filters are indicated at the top of the search results screen, and can be removed by selecting the 'Remove Filter' link.
Alternatively you may use the 'Refine Search' link which will take you to the advanced search screen and populate the search box with the search terms used.
Advanced search
On the advanced search screen you have the options of:
- Adding further keywords to the search or how the keywords are searched.
- Searching within the Headings, Author, first four lines or illustration captions only
- Searching within a specified date range
- Searching within specified newspapers. To select multiple newspapers, select the checkbox next to each title. Note that if no titles are selected the search will be performed across all titles in the service.
- Searching within particular categories only, you may select multiple options
- Restrict your search to articles of a particular length only
- Restrict your search to illustrated articles only
- Change the order that the results are sorted
The image viewer allows panning and zooming to view the entire article or entire page. You also have the ability to change the width of the electronically translated text or hide it completely.
To zoom (all zooming keeps the centre of the image constant):
- Use the '+' and '-' buttons on the slider in the lower right hand corner.
- Drag the slider to the desired level.
- Use the '+' and '-' buttons on the keyboard (may not work in all browsers).
- Double click on the image to centre on that point and zoom in.
To pan (move the image around the screen):
- Use the sliders on the right and bottom on the image viewr.
- Left click and hold to drag the image around.
To change the width of the electronically translated text:
- Mouse over the bar between the image and the electronically translated text to get a double-headed arrow.
- When the double headed arrow is visible, left click and hold to drag the bar to the desired width.
To hide the electronically translated text:
- Click on the button in the centre of the bar between the image and the electronically translated text.
- To restore the electronically translated text click on the button in the centre of the left-hand side of the image.
Printing or saving articles
To print an article, select the 'Print'button at the top of the left-hand column, above the electronically translated text. This will print only the image from the original newspaper and not the electronically translated text. The size that the article prints at is determined by the zoom level currently selected in the article view. Once this image opens, use the browser print function to print the article.
The article will not necessarily be printed as it appears on the original page. The system splits articles into blocks that fit on an A4 page in portrait orientation. At the start and end of each block there is some duplication (about 1-2 lines) to ensure that no text is lost. This duplication does not occur where the block begins or ends at the top or bottom of a page or article zone.
Note: As the system is set up to assume printing in portrait orientation, changing the print settings to landscape is likely to result in text missing.
To save an article, select 'Save as PDF' at the article level. This will open the article as a PDF document, which you need Adobe Reader (available from http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/) to view. Once the article has opened, save it to your computer using the save function in Adobe Reader.
To save or print a full page, select 'Save as PDF' at the page level. This will open the page as a PDF document optimised to print on A3 paper. This can then be printed or saved using the functions in Adobe Reader.
The following instructions are for Adobe Reader 8 in Windows. Other versions of Adobe Reader may not support this function.
To save or print a section of the article (such as a single classified advertisement), save the article as a PDF first, then:
- Open the document in Adobe Reader
- Go to Tools -> Select and Zoom -> Snapshot Tool
- Select the area that you require from the article.
This selection can then be printed, or pasted into a separate document.
Adding and using tags
Tags are keywords that may be added to an article. These will normally be terms relating to the subject or content of the article, such as World War 1 or Serial Fiction.
To view all articles that have been associated with a particular tag, select the tag from any screen where the tag appears as a link.
Adding and using comments
Comments are notes or annotations that may be added to an article. These can contain additional information about the subject of the article, or they can inform other users that the information contained in the article is incorrect.
Comments may be public or private, with private comments intended to allow researchers to make notes that they find useful, but are not necessarily of use to other users of the service. Both private and public comments are bound by the terms of use.
Correcting the electronically translated text
Correcting the electronically translated text refers to changing the OCR text to match that contained on the original newspaper page. Text corrections are saved to the database and will improve the service for all users by increasing the accuracy of search results.
Tips
- You can help correct mistakes in articles clicking Fix this Text. You will then be able to edit the text and make your changes.
- When you have finished click Save & Exit to save your changes and exit the edit mode.
- Click Save if you wish to save your changes and continue editing.
- Click Cancel to discard changes made since the last Save and exit the edit mode.
- Single words, lines or entire articles can be corrected.
- In older newspapers, the long 's' (appears as an 'f' without the crossbar) may be replaced with a lower case 's'.
Special Characters
- To add special characters (e.g. £) to the electronically translated text use the special characters button. For characters not in the list:
For Windows users:
- Open Character Map (Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Character Map), navigate to the character, click on the character, click 'select', then copy and paste into the electronically translated text; or
- If there is a keystroke displayed in the lower right corner of the character map, e.g. Alt+0163, hold down Alt and type the numerals on the numeric keypad to insert the characters into the text.
For Macintosh Users:
Place the cursor in the correct location, open 'Special Characters' (Edit -> Special Characters), navigate to the character, select the character, click insert.Keyboard shortcuts
To speed up the editing process, you can use keyboard shortcuts to navigate through the text and save your changes. Keyboard behaviour depends on your browser but in general:
- TAB allows you to move to the next line while Shift-TAB allows you to move to the previous line.
- Enter allows you to move to the next line.
- Up and Down arrow keys also allow you to move from line to line.
- Left and Right arrows allow you to move within a line or a text area. Use the Home and End keys to position the cursor at the beginning and end of the input field respectively.
- F12 allows you to move from word to word.
- Windows: Alt + s focuses the Save button, Alt + e focuses the Exit/Save & Exit button and Alt + x focuses the Cancel button. Hit Enter to perform the action. (These rely on browser "access key" functionality and may not work with all browsers.)
- MacOS X: Ctrl + s is equivalent to Save, Ctrl + e to Exit/Save & Exit and Ctrl + x to Cancel.
Missing Text
- If you come across an article with missing text, please add the missing text to the preceding line. As you type you may reach the text limit, click the add missing text link to allow you to add any missing text into the current text field (please note this feature is for registered users only).
Multi-page articles
- You can only correct mistakes on the page the system is showing. If an article spans over 2 or more pages, save any changes on the current page then go to the appropriate page by clicking on the On page ... link before correcting mistakes on that page.
Searching on your changes
- Although your changes will be immediately applied to the article, it may be several hours before the search index is updated. Hence your updates may not be immediately found by a search.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are article categories?
Each article was given a category to define its subject or type when it was processed. The aim of this is to enable users to better limit their searches to types of articles they are interested in e.g. News articles only, and to help with relevancy ranking. The description of categories is here: http://www.nla.gov.au/ndp/project_details/documents/ANDP_Article_categories_v1.3.pdf
Why is the electronically translated text sometimes incorrect or different to the text that I can read on the newspaper page?
The electronically translated text is created using automated software known as Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The computer 'eye' that looks at an image and translates it into searchable text is often not as good as the human eye. On good quality images the text is generally translated accurately and well; however if the source material is of poor quality (e.g. scanned newspapers) the results can vary significantly and translations may include incorrect characters, words, question marks or what looks like 'gobbly gook'. This happens when the computer eye does not see a clear black and white image. More information about OCR is here: http://www.nla.gov.au/ndp/project_details/documents/ANDP_OCR_overview_002.pdf
Why is the electronically translated text corrected on a line-by-line basis?
Each line of the electronically translated text is linked to a location on the article image. Through correcting line-by-line these links can be maintained, which allows clicking of the text to move the article image to that location on the screen (synchronisation).
I have corrected the text 'horsos' in an article to 'horses', why does a search for 'horsos' bring up the article that was corrected?
Corrected text does not overwrite the original text of the article. Both the corrected text and the original text are indexed and searched.
I am trying to find an article which I know contains particular distinctive words. Why doesn't this article appear in the search results?
Your search is looking across the electronically translated text (see above) produced by the OCR process. If the words have not been translated accurately, then the system will not be able to find these terms, even though you may be able to see them on the newspaper page with your own eyes. This is when it is a good idea to correct the electronically translated text to improve the searching for others.
I have noticed that searches for some names, in particular names containing an apostrophe (e.g. O'Reilly) or a 'Mc', do not always retrieve the expected results. What techniques can I use to find these names?
Punctuation marks are often not indexed by search engines as they are rarely an integral part of the word, which may result in difficulties searching for names that contain apostrophes. To get around this, try replacing the punctuation mark with a space or removing it from the search term alltogether (i.e. search for "OReilly" or "O Reilly"). With names beginning with "Mc", the "c" may beprinted as an apostrophe, so searching without the "c" may produce additional results (i.e. search for "MHugh" or "M Hugh" as well as "McHugh").
I am using an index to browse for an article. Why isn't the article where the index says it is?
There are four main reasons why an article may not be where the index says it is:
- The edition of the newspaper in Australian Newspapers Beta is different to the edition that was used to make the index.
- The page referred to in the citation is missing from Australian Newspapers Beta.
- The index has an incorrect citation.
- The page sequence number in Australian Newspapers Beta is not the page number as it appears in the index.
If you are using an index and unable to find articles referred to in the index, please advise us (using the contact form here) of the index that you are using and some of the citations that you are unable to find in Australian Newspapers Beta.
How is the relevance of an article determined?
In determining the relevance of an article (and therefore which results appear at the top of the search results list), a number of factors are taken into account, including how often the search terms appear, where in the article the search terms appear and how rare the search terms are. For a full description of relevancy ranking in Australian Newspapers Beta see the relevancy ranking document on the ANDP website at: http://www.nla.gov.au/ndp/project_details/documents/ANDP_Relevancy_ranking.pdf
What is the difference between correcting the electronically translated text and adding notes?
Correcting the electronically translated text makes changes to the electronically translated text in the database and improves accuracy of searching across terms for other people. The electronically translated text should exactly match what is printed on the newspaper page. The 'add Notes' feature enables users to provide further information about the events of the article in question, or state if they believe there is journalistic error in the original article.
Sometimes my search term is not highlighted - why?
Exact term matches are always highlighted. However the search engine automatically performs a 'fuzzy' search so that close matches are also found. Close matches are not usually highlighted in the electronically translated text or on the article image.
Why do the 'Print' and 'Save as...' views break the article into several images?
The 'Print' and 'Save As' views break the article down into several images so that it can be printed on A4 pages. These views do not reflect the appearance of the article on the original newspaper page. If a column needs to be split so that it will fit on the page, the images will overlap to ensure that no information is lost.
How do I change the size of the article in the 'Print' and 'Save As...' views?
The size of the article in the 'Print' and 'Save As' views is determined by the current zoom level in the article view. To change the size of the article in this view, change the zoom level in the article view until the desired size is reached.
How do I cite an article found on this website?
We recommend citing the article as an electronic document using your institution's preferred citation style. Use the URL on the top left hand side of the article view (between the Tags box and the Print icon), e.g. 'Cite: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1115857'. This URL is a persistent identifier which will always open the same article, whereas the URL in the address bar may not.
How long will it take for articles with the box 'The newspaper issue containing this article is currently being processed. This issue will be accessible shortly' to be available?
Articles with this indicator attached to them will normally be available within 10 working days.
![]() | Developed by the National Library of Australia as part of the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program |
