The following are instructions on how you can efficiently download content from the Toyota service manual website (TIS) at http://techinfo.toyota.com: REQUIREMENTS: Internet Explorer 5.5 or better (NO, firefox will NOT work on their site) Notepad Some sort of "site scraper" or "off-line downloader" tool A simple understanding of HTML Adobe Reader About 1 hour per entire service and electical manual to download and process First, sign up for either a day pass ($10 USD) or a monthly pass ($50 USD). Next, select the Make (toyota/Lexus), Model (Tercel, Echo, etc) and year. Be aware that cars come in generations, so the 2005 manual may really cover 2003 to 2005 without majors changes. Next select the major section of information - Repair Manual and Wiring Diagrams being the most common - select only one section at a time. Click the SEARCH button. In the right hand pane, a section and subsection search will be returned. If you click FIND without selecting any specific section and the search results return 250 results, then you will need to select each section individually, otherwise you can harvest all the inforation with a single search by just clicking FIND. Be aware that for repair manuals, you will have to download each section, for others like wiring diagrams, you will likely return less than 250 results. Now that you have your section selected and the results displayed below in the form of a clickable form, right click anywhere in the bottom section of the pane and right click and select View Source. The HTML source code will appear in NOTEPAD. You will notice that the FORM contains links to a perl script. The problem is, that with most "harvest" programs you can't harvest the data beyound the form. It turns out it is simpler than that. Normally, when you click on the form option, it will run the perl script and that script pulls up the actual PDF file. Really all the perl script does is to re-write the requesting URL of the perl script to that of the direct PDF file you want. The format of this switch is: /cgi-bin/ns-data-display_pl/,0/r1/ileaf/DIRNAME/rest/of/it/FILE.pl to the literal address of the PDF: /ileaf/DIRNAME/DIRNApdf/rest/of/it/FILE.pdf ------- So, an example would be the perl script of: ---------------- /cgi-bin/ns-data-display_pl/,0/r1/ileaf/06toyrm/06rmsrc/avalonsr/00100110.pl converts to the direct link of: /ileaf/06toyrm/06toypdf/06rmsrc/avalonsr/00100110.pdf or the entire URL would be: http://techinfo.toyota.com/ileaf/06toyrm/06toypdf/06rmsrc/avalonsr/00100110.pdf So, all you need to do is lop off the first five letters of the directory name (06toyrm in this case) and add the letters PDF. Then chop off everything before /ileaf and replace it with http://techinfo.toyota.com So, the trick is to open each one of the sections of HTML, copy and paste the sections that start with with .pdf> ------------------------------------- Fourth, add the directory information (see above on how to format): /02toyrm/ (NOTE: THIS IS ONLY AN EXAMPLE, ADJUST TO YOUR DOWNLOAD FORMAT) with /02toyrm/02toypdf/ (NOTE: THIS IS ONLY AN EXAMPLE, ADJUST TO YOUR DOWNLOAD FORMAT) ------------------------------------- Now you should have lines of text that look like the following: R.M. 2006::Preparation: 2GR-FE Ignition: Recommended Tools, Equipment (Avalon) So, you can see that what you have done is to create a HTML reference so that when the text is clicked (R.M. 2006::.....), it will bring up the correct PDF file. It also creates an entire table of contents so that you don't have have a bunch of .PDF files sitting in a directory. The problem is that you will notice that the end of the text is missing the which indicates that the text link has ended. So, you should notice that the model of the vehicle is listed at the end of the line for each and every line. So, next you will need to do a search and replace as follows: (Avalon) (NOTE: Your vehicle will vary) with (Avalon) Now you have a fully formed link. To make sure your links work, take a random link URL such as the one from the URL above: http://techinfo.toyota.com/ileaf06toyrm/06toypdf/06rmsrc/avalonsr/00200910.pdf Log into the TIS website and then copy and paste the URL into the browser bar. If everything has worked correctly, then you will see the requested PDF file come up. If you don't see it appear correctly, go back and re-read the instructions. ------------------------------------- Save your newly created text file as something like "2006 AVALON REPAIR MANUAL.HTML". ------------------------------------- Now you have a HTML file that has all the links to the PDF files. Since this is only useful if you are connected and logged into the TIS website, you want to create an off-line copy of all the data those links point to. So, you will need a program that can create an off-line duplicate copy of your HTML file with the PDF files. I use OffLine Explorer from Meta Products (http://www.metaproducts.com) and you can download a 30-day eval copy of their product at: http://dl.filekicker.com/send/file/167624-8K67/oesetup.exe Set it up (you'll have to read their instructions on how to do this... it isn't THAT hard to do) with the "website" you are downloading to be the HTML file you created. Download the entire website, including the PDF files to your local machine. Keep in mind that when downloading the content, you HAVE to be logged in with the credentials for the TIS website. In OffLine explorer, you can surf IE "inside" their offline browser, so all you have to do is to log into the TIS site, and once in, select to download your "website" file. It should take a few minutes to download all the PDF files. If you have a problem here, it is likely becuase your offline browser program isn't properly logged on to the TIS website when you started the download. Once you have the download complete, there is usually an "export" option that allows you to save it to a "CD ROM". This will download all the content and then adjust the HTML file you created to have pointers to the local drive where the off line content was downloaded to (and put into seperate directories). At this point you should have a complete replica of the TIS website content on your PC. If you take the time to download manuals, please also take the time to share your content with others on bittorrent. Sharing is simple and doesn't take more than 10 minutes once you've done it a few times. To learn how to share content, try this site: http://www.demonoid.com/faq_creation_utorrent.php Thanks, d-