Anyone not like PDFs?

[Len]

My biggest dislke with PDFs is that they are almost all formatted for printing, not for reading on-screen. I can't stand having to scroll up and down to read a page written in two columns.

This is partly due to the stupid Adobe reader, which seems purposely designed to make it as inconvenient as possible to scroll through the document, and to always show the text at a ridiculous size.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Love 'em. I have more PDFs than I do actual physical books, but is quietly changing. My dad gets his printer cartridges as a writeoff for work, so that is a plus. I have 4 DVDs full of PDF products plus at least another 10 CDs. Yeah, that is a lot. But I'm an avid gamer that likes to be able to crop pieces of info and inject them into my campaign(s). Hence, my love for for copying, pasting and printing what I want.

 

[LeapingShark]

Having the book on file is amazingly convenient, but printing costs are high and I do not like reading pdfs on screen.

What we need are monitors mounted with the long way up and down, that way a full page or paper will fit on the screen lengthwise. Documents and all kinds of files would be easier to read. It's dumb that monitors and printed materials are mismatched in dimensions.

 

[Yair]

Having the book on file is amazingly convenient, but printing costs are high and I do not like reading pdfs on screen.

What we need are monitors mounted with the long way up and down, that way a full page or paper will fit on the screen lengthwise. Documents and all kinds of files would be easier to read. It's dumb that monitors and printed materials are mismatched in dimensions.

Many LCD monitors have that functionality, you can just switch from horizontal to vertical mode.
What we need, though, are high-contrast high-resolution hand-held monitors; somethig that would be as easy to read and carry as a book. I hear that's in the works too, but I've yet to see a working model.

I like PDFs for the ability to print out just what I want. For example, I can print out sections of a map (zooming in), cut and paste selected parts, and so on.
I also like having the adventure as a collection of sheats rather than a booklet (makes it easier to have the map, encounter, and stat black all in view). And I feel more free to write down and jot on the adventure I've printed.
And I also like the instant delivery, and the cheaper prices. I purchase a lot of things that I never end up using, so I just don't need to print it all and even with printing costs it isn't more expensive really.
And the fact I can get hard-to-get products as pdfs.

They aren't for everything, I admit. Large books are not suitable to pdf format, at least not as the primary reference source (cut-and-paste can be helpful, still).

 

[Zander]

I hate PDFs. My narrow band connections rarely stays connected long enough and I have terrible difficulty unzipping zipped files.

 

[Pinotage]

Love them. Have nothing against a nice hardcover, but since I only game PbP, pdfs are very useful in that arena.

Pinotage

 

[amethal]

I love pdfs.

Just "bought" a load from RPGNow; most expensive one was 4 dollars, many were free, probably came to 8 dollars in total.

There's no way I could have bought printed versions. Even if they were free, the postage would probably have been from the USA so would have cost me considerably more than 8 dollars.

Cheap pdfs allow me to buy things on a whim, not have to worry about storage space (I have hundreds of books - not all RPGs, obviously! - and precious little space for any more), and no problems with delivery.

I enjoy glancing through my pdfs, flitting from one to another, mining them for useful ideas. Its a lot easier than having 8 books open on the table at once.

I'd happily swap many of my gaming books for the pdf versions.

 

[philreed]

What we need are monitors mounted with the long way up and down, that way a full page or paper will fit on the screen lengthwise. Documents and all kinds of files would be easier to read. It's dumb that monitors and printed materials are mismatched in dimensions.

And this is why I love my primary monitor. It's on a pivot so I can rotate it from landscape to portrait. Now if my secondary only had the same feature . . .

 

[The Cardinal]

I don't like PDFs.
If I'm forced to use/download them (usually because the material doesn't exist in print) I try hard to stick to the free stuff [I've only paid once or twice for PDFs over the last 3-4 years & I *never* download pirated data]. This has kept me from getting my hands on some excellent GURPS stuff over on e23

 

[DMH]

Looking at my history at rpgnow, I have bought over $600 worth of pdfs (plus a score or so from someone else- who deleted his copies). I live within walking distance of a place that binds files for 4.5 cents a page (B&W) and I have 2 shelves full of them, generally in groups (like the 2 Template Troves, the free chapter for Monster's Handbook and Visions: Stitches are in one binding).

There is too much good stuff in pdf only format for me to pass by.