rijksarchief-dl

A command line tool to download images from the Belgian National Archives

Prerequisites

You'll need to have Node.js and npm installed. This was only tested with npm 5.0.3 and Node.js 8.0.0, but it should work on the latest version.

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Usage
• Arguments

Installation

BEFORE YOU INSTALL: please read the prerequisites

$ yarn global add rijksarchief-dl
# or...
$ npm install -g rijksarchief-dl

Usage

Go to search.arch.be and make an account. You'll only be able to browse and view scans if you're logged in.

Use the search functionality to find archives relevant to your search. Make sure to check 'Alleen toegangen met scans' to only show archives with images publicly accessible from the website.

When you've found an archive, browse the available images and open the one you want. You should be able to view the image through some Adobe Flash applet. At this point, copy the url: it should contain a code in the form of XXX_XXXX_XXX_XXXXX_XXX_X_XXXX, this is used to identify and download the correct image.

Example

rijksarchief-dl --url "http://search.arch.be/nl/zoeken-naar-archieven/zoekresultaat/inventaris/rabscan/dao/1/eadid/BE-A0546_005577_006261_FRE/inventarisnr/I626100000001/afbeelding/546_0091_000_00575_000_0_0002.tjp"

Arguments

Long	Short	Description	Required
--help	-h	Output usage information	no
--version	-V	Output the version number	no
--url [url]	-u	The url of the image	yes
--scale-factor	-s	The scale factor of the image: determines the resolution, the bigger the scale factor, the smaller the image (options: 1,2,4,8,16,32)	no (default: 1)
--out-dir	-d	The folder in which the image will be saved	no (default: working directory)
--save-tiles	-t	Save the seperate tiles	no (default: false)
--open-image	-o	Open the image when finished	no (default: true)