Help
Welcome to Retromags, the vintage video game magazine archive
Welcome to Retromags, the vintage video game magazine archive. This site is all about digitally preserving video game magazines from yesteryear. You'll find hundreds of full issues to download and thousands of scanned magazine covers. Game magazines used to be incredibly important to the game industry, and while those days are long gone thanks to the Internet and World Wide Web, that does not mean those old magazines shouldn't be remembered and enjoyed today. This site allows you to do so easily and digitally. It's a nice alternative to having to have boxes of magazines stored in your house if that's something you don't want.
We are always looking for help, be it scanning or donating magazines, or contributing to the site in other forms. It costs nothing to be a member of this site. We do not sell anything on this site, and there are no ads. There are no profits made on this site; any money that is ever obtained by this site goes towards the cost of hosting the site.
A Note to Publishers and Content Owners
This site is set up to digitally preserve video game magazines from 1999 and earlier for current magazines. The rules for defunct magazines vary on a case-by-case basis. We do this because issues of these magazines are not readily available from publishers/content owners. While we don’t have legal permission, we operate in a way where we do not release anything that will reduce any potential income for you, or magazines that are available from you, nor do we release scans that are of a quality that may reflect poorly on you. So far this has worked, with several publishers/content owners basically ignoring our existence.
However, if you wish that we do not make content that you legally have ownership available on this site, just let us know and we will remove it. While we would prefer permission, we will fully oblige with your wishes concerning your content. This is a hobby we do out of passion and love for the video game magazines of yesterday, and not worth legal battles of any kind.
Compiling and Releasing
Renaming Files
The next step is to rename the files. It's not necessary, so you can skip this step if you don't mind the files not having a name specific to their issue.
I use a program called Bulk Rename Utility to rename batches of files. Once you install it, navigate to your jpgs folder from within the program, select all the files and do a search and replace. Let's say the issue in this example is GamePro Issue 90 from January 1997. I would tell the program to replace scan0 with GamePro Issue 090 January 1997 page (there is a space after the “e”) in all the highlight files. This will keep the page number in the file, and replaces everything else. If you ever need to extract pages from various CB files, it will be handy to have this info in the file name. After you are done, you can close the program.
Missing Pages
If there were pages missing, the file number won't match the page number. Within Bulk Rename Utility, select all the files that whose number don't match the page count (excluding the back covers for magazines like GamePro), and Insert a 1 after “scan” (or after “page ” if you are doing this after renaming all the files) and click Rename.
Then choose to Remove the last five characters, and insert the correct page number under Numbering, that increases by one. If the page is in the single or double digits, you'll have to give the Padding box a value until the number is three digits, with one or two zeros before the number.
If you scanned blank pages to avoid this issue, you can skip this part; you just need to take the Missing Page image and replace the blank scans. Just rename the Missing Page file name to fit in with the rest of the pages. If pages 59 and 60 are missing, then place two Missing Page files in the jpgs folder and rename them GamePro Issue 090 from January 1997 page 059 and GamePro Issue 090 from January 1997 page 060.
Creating a CBR
The next thing to do is to place the Thank You page in the folder with your JPGS. They can be found here. They appear at the and of all the scan done by Retromags. Now we are going to create the CBR file that CDisplay will open for viewing.
Select all the files in the jpg folder (excluding the lage poster file if there was one). I am assuming you have some sort of file compression program installed, like WinRAR or 7zip (I use 7zip – it's fee). Right-click and select “Add to Archive” or something similar. A window will pop up. Do not change any of the ZIP settings. Simply change the file name (in the case of this example GamePro Issue 090 January 1997.zip), and where you want to save it if you choose. Hit OK, and wait for the archive to be created. Once it's done, change the file extension from .zip to .cbr. Assuming you already have CDisplay installed, the icon should now be a speech bubble. Open it to make sure it works. If it works, onto the next step.
Uploading
Save a copy for yourself somewhere, and then right click the file again (select the large poster file as well if thee is one), and add it to an archive. In this example, I name the archive GPro_090.zip. We'll be uploading the file to MegaUpload, so we don't want the filename to tip anyone off to what it is so that it doesn't get deleted.
Next, go to http://www.retromags.com/pages/help/uploading_a_magazine to use the sites MegaUpload box. Browse for the file, and enter n/a for the description. Click send and wait for it to upload. When it's done, it will give you a link that you will paste into the Download Manager
Note: The MegaUpload box only works in Internet Explorer
Another Note: If you are a new member, you will not have access to the MegaUpload box yet. In this case, you can use another site like HotFile, or contact the site owner (me), or an administrator to help you upload the file.
Releasing Your Scan on the Download Manager
Make your way to the site and go to the Downloads section. Under the Categories, click on the title of the magazine you scanned. If you don't see it there, select Misc. In this case, it's GamePro. On the next page, click the Upload File on the right.
This next page is where you enter all the information about the scan. Enter the file name (in this case GamePro Issue 090 January 1997) the DPI (300), who scanned, edited and released it (this will be your user name all the time if you did everything from start to finish). In the File Description is where you enter any additional information about the scan. If there are missing or damaged pages, you can make a note of which ones they are so others know about them, and if they have the magazine, can scan them to add them to the scan, or any other pertinent information, such as the inclusion of a poster as a separate file along with the CBR.
Also, please try to make a habit of including the following code in the File Description.
[center]
[color="#FF0000"]****************************************
This file is in .CBR/.CBZ Format
You will need [url="http://www.retromags.com/downloads/CDisplay.zip"]Comic Book Reader [/url]
installed on your computer to read this file.
****************************************[/color]
[/center]
Under the File Description is the Link to File box. Here is where you will paste the link that the MegaUpload box gave you. As you can see, there you can add other links for other sites as well.
At the bottom is a box to enter a link to an image of the cover. We have most covers in the Cover Gallery. If the one for your issue is missing, you can easily submit it.
Go to the Cover Gallery and find the cove for your issue. Click on it to open its page. On the right you will see + Share Image. Click on that to expand it, and then copy the link in the Image Link box, and paste it in the Link to File box on the Download page.
Hit Add Submission, and you're done! That's it. You've just submitted your first scan to Retromags.