How do you read your PDFs?

How much pdf reading do you do of printed vs screen?

  • 10 : All PDFs get printed, no reading on the computer

    Votes: 11 3.7%
  • 9

    Votes: 11 3.7%
  • 8 : Most PDFs get printed, but some reading on the computer

    Votes: 42 14.2%
  • 7

    Votes: 5 1.7%
  • 6

    Votes: 4 1.4%
  • 5 : exactly equal amount of printed vs screen reading

    Votes: 15 5.1%
  • 4

    Votes: 11 3.7%
  • 3

    Votes: 19 6.4%
  • 2 : Some PDFs get printed but mostly read on the screen

    Votes: 104 35.1%
  • 1

    Votes: 34 11.5%
  • 0 : No printing, all PDFs are read on the computer.

    Votes: 40 13.5%

I think I printed half of a malhavoc adventure ONCE out of the 30+ pdfs I've bought over the years...it's a whole lot easier to put it on a memory stick, and take it between my home, office and laptop. I try to keep my carry along as light as possible, and printing it out doesn't help.
 

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I have to say I'm suprized at the results thus far. Conventional wisdom has always told me that "everyone prints the PDFs" and my screen reading was unusual enough that I couldn't expect anyone to cater to it. Anyone here in publishing know if there is market research that contridicts this (admitedly unscientific) sample?
 


I read all PDFs on my laptop and only rarely print specific pages that I might need. Almost every Pdf that has a hard copy is paired with that hard cover. I need to own the books. I'm sure many of you understand exactly what I mean.

THe electronic only products only occasionally get used. The most I've ever printed was from Fiery Dragon's character counters for a battle interactive at Origins this summer. I needed lots of dwarves, fighters and trolls. They worked great by the way. I highly reccomend this product.

Respectfully,

Edward Kopp
UKon Games Coordinator
UKon 2007 Feb 9th & 10th
Lexington, KY
 

For me at least, reading is something that has to be done away from the computer. I work in front of a computer for eight hours a day (it's where I am now). When I get home, the last thing I want to do is sit in front of a computer to read gaming books. I don't own a laptop, so that option is out. And besides, laptops don't work too well when taking a bath, or when I want to read in bed. I like books. I like the feel of paper. I really dislike computers at the gaming table. The people I play with have a short enough attention span, they don't need a computer distracting them.
 

I don't even own a printer. All PDFs are read on screen.

The most you'll get me to do is borrow the office printer to print a character sheet in a F2F game.
 

Mostly onscreen, I used to print out a bunch and read them that way (particularly ones I was reviewing) but now I rarely print out any (select pages for immediate planned use at a table top game, a module I want to go over in depth while away from my computer, etc.).
 

Often the pdfs just stay on screen, either because it is too long to practically print out or because I only want a very small section of the pdf. In general I buy pdfs as research material, rather than as something to use directly in my game (though there are some major exceptions, some that only developed after I picked up the pdf!).
 


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