Enough with the PDF table of contents already!

[Mercule]

The PDF file is fine, the .zip is fine. If they were not .zipped, people would complain about how evil WoTC wastes that quarter-second of download time.

I'll see your quarter second download time and raise you the two seconds it takes for me to work with the .zipped file.

I'll agree with others here who have started ignoring the TOC because it's zipped. Actually, I was ignoring the whole preview at one point. Then I realized it was usually only the TOC that was being intentionally annoying.

 

[Dire Bare]

I am like totally amazed at how many people here find the zipped PDF ToC files annoying or difficult to work with.

I mean, sheesh, it's cake! I have absolutely no problems at home or at work, and I enjoy seeing the formatting of the book preserved.

I love PDF's! I'd prefer the entire previews to be in PDF format! And I don't mind the zip at all.

I guess I just don't see the difficulty here, granted it takes me like a whole two steps instead of just one to view the preview, but I'm confidently able to do that each month . . .

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I am like totally amazed at how many people here find the zipped PDF ToC files annoying or difficult to work with.

It is a waste of time, simply put. instead of just clicking on a link and reading through the table, I have to download something, open a file manage, unpack the archive, and click on the PDF, then wait for Acrobat to open. What would have taken an effortless second now takes a minute or more and a lot of klicking around.

I agree. The PDF part is just fine. With HTML you might have to worry about how pages render in different browsers

Just get a decent browser that does its work as it's supposed to do. Plus, I can't see what's so important in the layout and rendering of a table of contents preview. It's not as if they're giving us our proof printings for our 2.000.000 print run high-gloss magazine.

I know that Preview (OS X) allows you to view PDF's and Adobe Reader is free so I dont understand what the beef is with PDF's.

Does it allow to view zipped PDFs?

I like the PDF. It lets me zoom and print out if I want to.

My browser allows the same things. Not that I'd really want to zoom around in a TOC preview, or print it.


Remember, we're not talking about a whole book or anything. We're not debating that Paizo should give us the electronic version of Pathfinder as HTML instead of PDF. We're talking about a preview, something I'd assume you usually want to access quickly and look at it for a short time, without bothering with downloading, unpacking, viewing, deleting, and all that.

It's the Zipping of the PDF that gets annoying. If it was just PDF I could just click on it and the plug in would handle it from there.

As I said, I would tolerate that (it's not as if it were impossible - I'm looking at the PlayerHandouts.pdf for Shackled City right now, and it wans't zipped, even though it's 1.6MB) even though I don't quite see why a TOC of all things needs to be a PDF instead of a normal preview - or just a post in some thread on their message boards like they used to do if I remember correctly.

 

[Kesh]

It is a waste of time, simply put. instead of just clicking on a link and reading through the table, I have to download something, open a file manage, unpack the archive, and click on the PDF, then wait for Acrobat to open. What would have taken an effortless second now takes a minute or more and a lot of klicking around.

...

Does it allow to view zipped PDFs?

In a sense, yes. See, Safari by default is set to open files for you when they download. So, you download the file, it sees it's a ZIP, decompresses it, and now you've got the file ready to view.

Personally, I hate viewing PDFs in web browsers, as it's slower than a native viewer, tends to crash more often, etc. I've never had good experience with PDFs inside a browser, regardless of what browser it is.

 

[GreatLemur]

As has been pointed out, while it's naturally simplest to just output a PDF from any decent layout application, converting it to HTML ain't much harder. I just timed myself, and it took 12 minutes to set up the Complete Champion table of contents, and I handicapped myself by using a text editor, just for kicks.

Concerns with how the table looks when converted to HTML strike me as bizarre. They share all their other excerpts as HTML; why is it the that ToC gets the PDF treatment? It's not like it's an especially pretty or interesting page. Nothing about the whole experience makes it worth the extra hassle, however minor.

I think PDF is fine, it's becoming increasingly standard on the internet. It's the Zip that puts me off.

Yeah, that's the bit that's really indefensible. Considering the compression that Acrobat normally uses, the file size difference between a zipped and unzipped PDF is inconsequential. For the Complete Champion ToC, for example, it's 256 kb vs. 311 kb. As Mercule pointed out, it takes longer to unzip the damn thing than it takes to download another 55 kb, for Christ's sake!

 

[Prophet2b]

I'm actually fine with the PDF. It's the ZIP file I don't understand. Like it makes a difference...

PDF's are considered more "professional" (especially over a graphic file), and usually when any company has a standard (and PDF's are the standard for most companies, today) they aren't going to deviate from that. JPG's would be considered incredibly unprofessional. And, yeah, you might be thinking, "Who the hell cares?" Well... the companies do!

Besides which, and no offense to anyone is meant by this, but does it really kill you to open up a PDF file? You've got to have Adobe on your computer - it's become a standard.

As for the ZIP file... who the heck knows...

EDIT: Oh, and I don't know if everyone has this option, but whenever I view things from WotC, I never download them. I say "Open" (usually Windows File Manager or whatever it is), so it opens the ZIP right away, and then from there I open the PDF. Much faster. And if, for some strange reason, I decide I want it - I just do a quick "Save As"... usually I don't want it, though.

Downloading the ZIP, unarchiving, reading, closing, deleting the mess from the computer... no - that's just too much trouble.

 

[GreatLemur]

Besides which, and no offense to anyone is meant by this, but does it really kill you to open up a PDF file? You've got to have Adobe on your computer - it's become a standard.

I've got Notepad, too, but it'd still be an inexcusably bad decision to link text files on a professional website. PDFs are great for a lot of things, but even with a setup that handles them well--and we all know not everybody has that--it's still kind of annoying to suddenly be taken out of my browser just to view content that would work perfectly well on a web page. Four years after the v.3.5 PHB came out, I'm just not that interested in seeing that rusty metal page border again.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I am like totally amazed at how many people here find the zipped PDF ToC files annoying or difficult to work with.

I mean, sheesh, it's cake! I have absolutely no problems at home or at work, and I enjoy seeing the formatting of the book preserved.

The knowledge that WotC can successfully put text into two columns on a page with no art gives you pleasure?

I'm pretty sure I can take that on faith, myself.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

PDF's are considered more "professional" (especially over a graphic file), and usually when any company has a standard (and PDF's are the standard for most companies, today) they aren't going to deviate from that.

EVERY OTHER PAGE OF THE PREVIEW DEVIATES FROM THAT!

 

[Destil]

PDF files are always a bad idea, actually, unless you want to print something out. I'd be so happy to see that format die...