Online character builder / printing

[LightPhoenix]

These Character Builder PDF-images do not allow easy abstraction of the text content; so that is the kind of PDF they require their application to create.

I don't mean the following to suggest piracy, as a disclaimer.

Text-recognition programs are trivial to implement on images like this, even in PDF form. That's why you see (for example) CAPTCHAs with various distorting elements in them.

That said, if someone really wanted to get the data, all they would have to do is capture the incoming data from the database. Hopefully there's some encryption on it, but given that you know the data, it's probably not difficult to crack it, whatever it is.

The real impediment to piracy from this model is the application itself. It would be a fair amount of work to write something that would act like the online CB. Which is why you see stuff like the programs to alter the offline CB data.

 

[The Halfling]

I used Cute PDF, and noticed the same issue. When I opened up the print queue, the file ranged from 550 to 770 mb. Once Cute PDF finished with it it was 4-5 mb. So it may still swamp your PC if you run small on ram, like my netbook does (1GB).

I really need to upgrade it anyway.

 

[Riley]

My own personal guess about the direction WotC is taking this: they are trying to find an alternative to piratable PDFs which include text in them. These Character Builder PDF-images do not allow easy abstraction of the text content; so that is the kind of PDF they require their application to create.

Yes, but there are already books out there which can be easily scanned and OCR'd if people want to extract the text. I'd even hazard a guess that it has already been done for most 4e books.

Removing the text from the CB character sheets is just creating a hassle for legitimate, paying users like myself.

 

[sigfile]

If you don't have access to a full version of Acrobat (the Acrobat Printer makes some nice, small images, and you have the option to "Reduce File Size" to shrink the image even further), I recommend BullZip. Works similarly to CutePDF and PrimoPDF, but has produced superior images with a smaller file size. YMMV, of course.

 

[Mithreinmaethor]

When using CutePDF to print to pdf set the DPI to 144. It makes readable but much much smaller files.

 

[tuxgeo]

If you don't have access to a full version of Acrobat (the Acrobat Printer makes some nice, small images, and you have the option to "Reduce File Size" to shrink the image even further), I recommend BullZip. Works similarly to CutePDF and PrimoPDF, but has produced superior images with a smaller file size. YMMV, of course.

Add me as another vote for Bullzip.
My own trick to avoid overloading the printer's RAM is to segment the Character Sheet: from the online CB, print out page 1 (only) to Bullzip and save that as a .pdf file; then do the same to page 2 (only), and save it with a different name; then page 3, then page 4, and so on. Each of the resulting files is small (less than 3 MB each), and nothing in the process makes an image that is bigger than 128 MB at any time. Most computers can handle that, these days.

 

[Vicar In A Tutu]

Thank you guys, nice suggestions! I have talked this over with my group, and we have decided to just keep using the old, offline character builder. Everyone in my group has become familiar with it, and finally after using the offline version since launch, it has become fairly bug-free (at least there are few larger bugs).

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Thank you guys, nice suggestions! I have talked this over with my group, and we have decided to just keep using the old, offline character builder. Everyone in my group has become familiar with it, and finally after using the offline version since launch, it has become fairly bug-free (at least there are few larger bugs).

What do you plan to do about all the material that has come out since the last update?

 

[Vicar In A Tutu]

Well, no one expressed any interest in new material, at least not for the time being. There are so many classes, so many feats and stuff that they are satisfied. Also, as a DM, if the players wanted to use the online character builder, that would be fine by me. (I only buy books that are useful to me as a DM, books like Monster Vault, Demonomicon, Monster Manual 3, etc.) Maybe things will change when Heroes of Shadow comes out and someone wants to play a necromancer, but they are lvl 14 now and have more or less stuck to the same character classes (and characters!) since lvl 1.