PDF's and page counts

[Liquide]

OK pretty new to PDF design and layout, but has been working on general design for ages (well half my life almost, darn I'm getting old).

Remember two things.

1) 96dpi is what most monitors use so above that you'll not see any on-screen diffrence (well unless you start to zoom that is) .

2) Always remember to set image quality to a reasonable quality aswell, while the product itself might look great at 150 dpi do you really need all that high quality pictures (remember the human eye is quite limited when it comes to detail, color is a whole other matter though).

Well that is my thoughts, observe that this is the designers view on stuff not a PDF makers view

Oh and hi HellHound

 

[Cergorach]

Hi,
I make pdfs and if you want to make everyone happy, make more than one version of your pdf. A low, medium, and high quality pdf (and maybe even a text only version), this satisfies everyone and gives the customer the ability to choose what's right for him/her. Personally i want 150pdi for everything in grey/color and 300dpi for B&W, this is only for viewing of course, for print i would want the grey/color also in 300dpi. For those who want to know i'm running on a 1600x1200 desktop on a 22" screen, so when i'm running fullscreen and make a 8" wide page fit with in screen i'm going to notice anything less than 150dpi...

 

[Liquide]

Hi,
I make pdfs and if you want to make everyone happy, make more than one version of your pdf. A low, medium, and high quality pdf (and maybe even a text only version), this satisfies everyone and gives the customer the ability to choose what's right for him/her. Personally i want 150pdi for everything in grey/color and 300dpi for B&W, this is only for viewing of course, for print i would want the grey/color also in 300dpi. For those who want to know i'm running on a 1600x1200 desktop on a 22" screen, so when i'm running fullscreen and make a 8" wide page fit with in screen i'm going to notice anything less than 150dpi...

The problem with PDF's is how to make one size fits all concept, the problem we have is what we can do without making several versions. And you must always assume that a person that downloads it can get download it in less then an hour on a 56.6 Modem. So the above solution, how grand it might look, is not the solution that will work for people who publish PDF's on the web.

Just a note!

[edit]
And the standard monitor size and resolution is 17" @ 1024 still, which means even if you have to make it look a bit worse on a bigger monitor you have to please the greater mass when you only can make one version of your product, in that case a PDF.

On the good size, it might look a bit crappy on the monitor, but usually prints out well.
[/edit]

 

[Cergorach]

The problem with PDF's is how to make one size fits all concept, the problem we have is what we can do without making several versions. And you must always assume that a person that downloads it can get download it in less then an hour on a 56.6 Modem. So the above solution, how grand it might look, is not the solution that will work for people who publish PDF's on the web.

Just a note!

[edit]
And the standard monitor size and resolution is 17" @ 1024 still, which means even if you have to make it look a bit worse on a bigger monitor you have to please the greater mass when you only can make one version of your product, in that case a PDF.

On the good size, it might look a bit crappy on the monitor, but usually prints out well.
[/edit]

One problem publishers seem to have is that their target audience aren't your average computer users. They range from piss poor students with a 33k6 modem and a 14"@800x600 screen to the rich kid that has 8Mbit ADSL and a 22"@1600x1200 or higher resolution. Also, some want to watch it on screen only and others want to print it out either in full color or with as little ink used as possible.

Most PDF publishers don't sell in the volumes such as Monte, and even Monte has a really small audience. With a small audience divercity is a killer, because a few in the upper or lower ranges might mean the difference for a publisher to win or lose money.

It's currently not that difficult to please different groups of people, mostly because the work involved in supplying different formats isn't that much. Most Good DTP programs allow you to distill in different compression methods and resolutions. Making four different files, low, medium, high quality and no images only takes me 10 extra minutes max. Integration into a webshop might be a bit more difficult, but after the initial investment of time shouldn't be a real problem.

I'm thinking up this database driven system that will generate files on demand and to specific user requests, color/grey/B&W, A4/Letter, 2/3 column, low/medium/high/non, lettertype used and size, etc. It won't be easy, but would be very user pleasing...

 

[Liquide]

One problem publishers seem to have is that their target audience aren't your average computer users. They range from piss poor students with a 33k6 modem and a 14"@800x600 screen to the rich kid that has 8Mbit ADSL and a 22"@1600x1200 or higher resolution. Also, some want to watch it on screen only and others want to print it out either in full color or with as little ink used as possible.

Most PDF publishers don't sell in the volumes such as Monte, and even Monte has a really small audience. With a small audience divercity is a killer, because a few in the upper or lower ranges might mean the difference for a publisher to win or lose money.

It's currently not that difficult to please different groups of people, mostly because the work involved in supplying different formats isn't that much. Most Good DTP programs allow you to distill in different compression methods and resolutions. Making four different files, low, medium, high quality and no images only takes me 10 extra minutes max. Integration into a webshop might be a bit more difficult, but after the initial investment of time shouldn't be a real problem.

I'm thinking up this database driven system that will generate files on demand and to specific user requests, color/grey/B&W, A4/Letter, 2/3 column, low/medium/high/non, lettertype used and size, etc. It won't be easy, but would be very user pleasing...

Make that an initial investment of lots of money, PDF creation from database licenses are not cheap at all.

Still the best solution asis with the update pdf (via patch) option also screams for a single format, so it is not that we dun wanna please all. We just have to please the large amount of customers that wants the PDF in question.

 

[Cergorach]

Make that an initial investment of lots of money, PDF creation from database licenses are not cheap at all.

Still the best solution asis with the update pdf (via patch) option also screams for a single format, so it is not that we dun wanna please all. We just have to please the large amount of customers that wants the PDF in question.

The database way is expensive if not done inhouse. The software is available for free, all you need is the knowhow.

The multiple format doesn't have to be database driven as i said, and only takes a little extra time. There are also very simple solutions for webshops when downloading different versions.

As for updating, most software used for making patches also includes a batch function, so shouldn't take that much mor extra time. The only problem i could see is possible confusion of the customer, but could be easily remedied:

book - low.pdf
book - med.pdf
book - high.pdf
book - non.pdf

book (patch1.2) - low.pdf
book (patch1.2) - med.pdf
book (patch1.2) - high.pdf
book (patch1.2) - non.pdf

 

[Liquide]

The database way is expensive if not done inhouse. The software is available for free, all you need is the knowhow.

The multiple format doesn't have to be database driven as i said, and only takes a little extra time. There are also very simple solutions for webshops when downloading different versions.

As for updating, most software used for making patches also includes a batch function, so shouldn't take that much mor extra time. The only problem i could see is possible confusion of the customer, but could be easily remedied:

book - low.pdf
book - med.pdf
book - high.pdf
book - non.pdf

book (patch1.2) - low.pdf
book (patch1.2) - med.pdf
book (patch1.2) - high.pdf
book (patch1.2) - non.pdf

Last time I checked Adobe took £200 and up for licensing the distiller engine (depeding on which functions you want to use and how you will use it) for non Adobe products, so this means quite an investment for some publishers. And yes an online resource that generates PDF's is considered software.

Still I have worked a bit on generating PDF's from databases and you never get a nice finished result from it, it always involves as much pre-work to get the templates right as it takes from actually typesetting doing the layout work on them. Simpler PDF's with no fancy layout are easy to create though (but that is not what most publishers are after).

And still the multi-version is not a plausible solution at all in this case, hey how do you determine which product the customer actually bought (you usually don't sell the product yourself you leave that to sites like rpgnow!). And what if someone that buys one version of the product online and want the other high-quality version (for monitor viewing) as well as a lower and lesser image version for printing (since it needs to be cheap and easy to print out PDF's)

So as good as multi-version might look, this seems not to be a good solution in this matter.

 

[jmucchiello]

At the risk of hijacking the thread. How do PDF Publishers and Purchasers feel about landscape vs portrait? Would landscape PDFs "solve" any of the on screen reading problems without be too detrimental to the print-it-out contingent?

Joe Mucchiello
Throwind Dice Games
http://www.throwingdice.com

 

[Liquide]

At the risk of hijacking the thread. How do PDF Publishers and Purchasers feel about landscape vs portrait? Would landscape PDFs "solve" any of the on screen reading problems without be too detrimental to the print-it-out contingent?

Joe Mucchiello
Throwind Dice Games
http://www.throwingdice.com

I think myself and Cergorach already have hijacked it really

 

[jmucchiello]

Heh. I hadn't noticed you guys were off-topic. I thought that was the topic.