{ "id": "2003-julyaugust-buying-a-gps", "slug": "2003-julyaugust-buying-a-gps", "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2003-julyaugust-buying-a-gps.html", "year": 2003, "month": "July/August", "monthNum": 7, "headline": "Buying a GPS", "kicker": "", "author_name": "", "author_title": "", "affiliation": "", "summary": "A guide to purchasing GPS units for newsroom use, covering price ranges, key considerations for different use cases, and essential features like ruggedness and map displays versus basic coordinate-only models.", "keywords": [ "GPS", "equipment", "newsroom" ], "topics": [ "Technology" ], "technologies": [ "GPS", "ArcPad", "GIS", "Windows Pocket PC", "Excel", "Adobe Acrobat", "UltraEdit" ], "full_text": "Buying a GPS\n\nIn a few short years, the GPS market has taken off. Buyers will find plenty of choices and a range of prices to fit almost any newsroom budget.\n\nIf you have a few thousand dollars to burn, Trimble and ESRI offer a promotional deal on a Trimble GPS, a Windows Pocket PC and ArcPad, ESRI's GIS for Pocket PC. At the other end of the spectrum, you can find a Magellan GPS 310 for $99 on Amazon.com.\n\nWhat you should buy depends on how you plan to use the unit. Are you, the GIS user, going to be the only one using it? Or are you going to circulate it in the newsroom? Do you need a map on screen, or can you live with just seeing coordinate points?\n\nThe basics: If you don't already have one, you'll need a GIS. You also will need a GPS unit with a PC connection of some kind. Most, but not all, have them. You should probably get one that's a little more rugged, since journalists seem to have a habit of dropping electronics.\n\nThe extras: If you want to save a considerable amount of money and are comfortable dealing with latitude and longitude coordinates, buy a GPS unit without a built-in map and screen. Low-end GPS units, which take position points just as well as more expensive models, don't include a scrolling map on their screen, just a compass. However, if you plan to hand the unit to novices, having a screen with a map on it is a good idea: reporters tend to be more comfortable with the idea of seeing a map, pushing a button, and having a dot appear where they are.\n\nthe end of the rankings and move it to Column B where it belongs. To do that, you could do a LEFT function for Column A (example: =LEFT(A82,2) for two-digit rankings, =LEFT(A104,3) for three digits) and a CONCATENATE for Column B. (Insert a new column and type -CONCATENATE(RIGHT(A82,1)&B82).)\n\nSo, is there any way to import data into Excel and keep the exact formatting of columns? The good news - if you're willing to break the process into steps - is that yes, it's possible with Acrobat Reader 6.0. It has a new feature that lets you select a column of text. Just click the \"Select Text\" tool and move the cursor toward the column until it looks like a vertical bar with a box around it.\n\nThen highlight the column (See figure 8), copy it, and paste into Excel. With steady mouse skills, you can even strip the column of rankings and keep them separate. Be creative - sometimes it's easier to copy a column starting somewhere besides the upper-left hand corner.\n\nIt works almost perfectly. The one big goof was that the column for newspaper ownership was blank in a couple of cases, but the data pasted into Excel without the spaces - so it stopped two rows short. That means you have to go back and reinsert the blank cells where they belong. You can also import the column headers with the data, but that requires tinkering, too. For instance, \"Rank in top 200\" filled up four vertical cells in Column A, just as it looks in the original.\n\nThe other big drawback is that the Column Select tool highlights only the data that appears on your screen. So for this table, which runs six pages, you'd have to select each column and paste for each page. This is okay for a small table - but if you've got hundreds of pages, you might want to stick with one of the free downloads.\n\nThe Challenge included a third document that several lists of the top-scoring schools in Missouri, motop 10.pdf. The same methods work with that document that worked with the ASNE table. Willis, for one, copied and pasted the data into UltraEdit and replaced the ending parentheses in the school column with tabs, coded in the program as \")\"t\". He then replaced every number with spaces with tabs, coded in UltraEdit as ^1^t Willis imported that file into Excel, added the header row and saved it. (Note: UltraEdit costs $35.)\n\nIn summary, here are some tips to keep in mind:\n\nMake sure you've got the most recent version of Acrobat Reader. Check back for updates. Here's a link for the latest version: www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readermain.html\nYou can convert documents for free or close to nothing (less than $40), especially if you're willing to do a little cleaning.\nYes, cleaning. No matter how you import something, chances are it won't be perfect. Spot-check your imported version with the original. Also be prepared to do a little work to get the column headers in the right place.\nExperiment. You can import the same file using more than one method.\n\nWith some practice and patience, you might find that importing PDFs into Excel is almost as simple as A-B-C.\n\nContact Holly Hacker by e-mail at holly@nicar.org", "provenance": { "extracted_by": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6", "extracted_at": "2026-07-05", "verified": true }, "similar": [ { "slug": "2003-julyaugust-gps-units-add-depth-to-reporting", "score": 0.415 }, { "slug": "2005-novemberdecember-gis-gps-after-the-storm", "score": 0.388 }, { "slug": "1996-september-we-did-it-our-way", "score": 0.182 }, { "slug": "1992-june-what-does-it-take-to-run-a-successful-computer-assisted-reporting-program", "score": 0.106 }, { "slug": "1992-june-tech-tips", "score": 0.097 } ], "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2003-julyaugust-buying-a-gps.html", "json_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2003-julyaugust-buying-a-gps.json" }