Bulletin Rescue Free file check

See a sample archive

This is what a church office gets back from us, shown on a made-up church: twenty years of Grace Street Church bulletins, newsletters and flyers, sorted, searchable, and ready to hand to the next secretary.

Grace Street Church is made up. We wrote every file ourselves: the names, the address, the (555) phone number and the prayer lists are invented, and the hymn titles are in the public domain.

We built the archive with the same tool we use on real jobs. One difference: our made-up files started as PDFs standing in for .pub files, so the step where we turn each Publisher file into a PDF isn't shown here. On a real job, that step comes first.

Search it yourself

This is the real search page from the Grace Street archive. Try Easter 2019, a hymn such as It Is Well, or the pastor's name, Okafor. Each result opens the PDF.

Grace Street Church archiveOpen full screen

In a real archive this page is a single file, index.html, in the top folder. It opens in any web browser and works without the internet, from a shared drive or a USB stick.

What's in the folder

Grace Street sent 50 files from 8 messy folders. They got back 42 PDFs in one tidy folder, plus three files that explain it.

Grace Street Church archive

The Grace Street folder, with the 2019 bulletins opened. Every file and link here is the real thing: click one to open it.

  • Folders by type, then yearBulletins, newsletters, flyers, programs and other, one folder per year inside each. Every file is named by its date, so they sort in order.
  • A search page for every wordOne file that opens in any browser, even offline. Type a name, a hymn or a year.
  • A "where everything is" guideOne printed page: what's in each folder, how files are named, and how to find something in ten seconds.
  • A duplicates reportEvery copy we left out and the file we kept instead.
  • With Complete: your templates in CanvaYour weekly bulletin, newsletter and flyer rebuilt as Canva designs you can keep editing. The Grace Street sample doesn't include these; see step 4 below for how we move them.

The duplicates report

Church offices save the same bulletin more than once: "FINAL", "Copy of", a backup on the old computer. We keep one of each and list every file we left out, so nothing disappears without a record. Grace Street had 8.

Left out (as you sent it)Kept insteadWhy
Old computer/Backup/Easter 2019 FINAL.pdfBulletins/2019/2019-04-21 Easter Sunday.pdfExact copy
Desktop/Copy of Easter 2019 FINAL.pdfBulletins/2019/2019-04-21 Easter Sunday.pdfExact copy
Desktop/Easter 2019 draft.pdfBulletins/2019/2019-04-21 Easter Sunday.pdfNear copy, 93% the same text; kept the newer one
Flyers/strawberry supper old.pdfFlyers/2011/2011-06-18 Strawberry Supper.pdfNear copy, 86% the same text; kept the newer one
Old computer/Backup/VBS 2017.pdfFlyers/2017/2017-07-10 Vacation Bible School.pdfExact copy
Desktop/Grace Notes April 2016 (2).pdfNewsletters/2016/2016-04 April newsletter.pdfExact copy
Desktop/newsletter april.pdfNewsletters/2019/2019-04 April newsletter.pdfNear copy, 99% the same text; kept the newer one
Desktop/Ellis memorial - Copy.pdfPrograms/2016/2016-03-05 Celebration of Life for Margaret Ellis.pdfExact copy

From a messy folder to an archive

The four things that happen between the zip file you send and the folder you get back.

  1. The folder as it arrived

    Fifty files spread over eight folders: the desktop, a backup from the old computer, a scanned page, and names like Publication1.pub and bulletin.pub that say nothing about what's inside.

    A folder listing of church files: several copies of the Easter 2019 bulletin highlighted in yellow, and files named Publication1.pub, bulletin.pub and sept.pub. A yellow note says: Can't open file, 50 files, 8 folders, no Publisher.
    Drawn with the Grace Street file names, shown as the .pub files a real office sends. Yellow rows are copies of another file.

  2. Every file dated, named and sorted

    We read each file for its date and what kind of document it is, then give it a plain name. Easter 2019 FINAL.pub becomes Bulletins/2019/2019-04-21 Easter Sunday.pdf.

    The one-page guide on top tells anyone where everything is. Open the Grace Street guide.

    The one-page guide titled Where everything is, for Grace Street Church, 2006 to 2025: 50 files sent, 8 copies left out, 42 searchable PDFs, a list of folders with file counts, and a grid of files by year.
    The whole guide fits on one page, so it can be printed and kept by the computer.

  3. Every word searchable

    Type "Easter 2019" and the Easter Sunday bulletin comes up first, with the words highlighted. Pick a type or a year to narrow it down.

    The scanned 2006 bulletin had no text at all, only a picture of the page. We ran text recognition on it, so it turns up in a search like everything else.

    The Grace Street search page with Easter 2019 typed in. It finds 3 files, with the Easter Sunday bulletin of April 21, 2019 first, and the words Easter and 2019 highlighted.
    The same search page you can use at the top of this page.

  4. Templates you still use, moved to Canva

    With Complete, we rebuild your weekly bulletin, newsletter and flyer as Canva designs you can edit.

    Old Publisher clip art is the usual snag: Canva can't read it and shows a blank landscape instead. We convert the clip art first, so the picture comes through.

    Two cut-outs from a Canva import. Left, straight into Canva: the clip art is a placeholder landscape. Right, after our clip-art step: the original drawing of a man at a computer is back.
    From our Canva import test on a public sample file (a small-business brochure attached to freedesktop.org bug 61579), not a church file.

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