Printing PDFs

[nedjer]

Should anyone share my over enthusiasm for fairly affordable tech I mention this Netbook. It's 13" rather than 12 and better models will turn up, the price will drop and some other suppliers, of the many, have probably pulled the same trick.

I've also had my ups and downs with Dell but . . .

The Inspiron M301z (with 7200 drive) and it's ickle 12" cousins hit or very nearly hit the graphics, session length and speed of data transfer needed to be real good for whole collections of electronic RPGs. The trick, however, is that the one I tried seemed to have very little flex, which is the number 1 fail on passing round and sharing laptops. I reckon there's a solid metal frame in there, though I wasn't allowed to open it up and check.

Please don't buy one now, but once they're £300 - sweet at the table.

 

[gamerprinter]

Nothing disparaging on you, but we don't allow electronics in our game. We even have a rule where cell phones, laptops, IPADs and whatnot are placed on a table outside the gaming room and shut off. We do have one business man that requires a phone while we play, and he puts it on vibrator mode, but he's the only exception.

I've tried to run a VT app from a laptop as the GM, and got nothing but flack from the players about waste of table space, undo heat generated sitting next to the laptop, "I keep tripping over the power cord", etc., etc.

So using Androids, Iphone apps, palm devices for various functions in game is outlawed at our table.

We only use books, paper, pen/pencil, dice, maps, whiteboard, and a calculator is allowed, though most of us calculate in our heads.

Nothing wrong with using electronics in your game, but for us - no can do.

GP

 

[Scott DeWar]

I usually open the left margine pages and right click on a particular page to print it.

 

[Haltherrion]

I use both Office Depot and Fedex (although on the latter, be sure you are selecting the standard paper and not their premium "executive" paper which will triple the cost). They take just about anything including pdfs. I've always used pdfs even for my own work because its more likely to get you exactly what you have in mind. For a few bucks more, both places will three-hole punch or bind the docs for you and you can submit all of this online and have it shipped to you or pick it up yourself. Basic jobs are generally done in a few hours. I believe they will bind multiple docs into a single binder but haven't tried that (if nothing else, you could probably put that in the special instructions or hand deliver the print job.)

Last time I was waiting to pick up a doc at Office Depot I noticed they sell pdf to .doc converters so pdfs are not "uncrackable". I'd advise everyone to respect 3rd party copyrights but if you have a legit reason for making something in a pdf editable, there are ways to do it.

 

[nedjer]

Nothing disparaging on you, but we don't allow electronics in our game. We even have a rule where cell phones, laptops, IPADs and whatnot are placed on a table outside the gaming room and shut off. We do have one business man that requires a phone while we play, and he puts it on vibrator mode, but he's the only exception.

I've tried to run a VT app from a laptop as the GM, and got nothing but flack from the players about waste of table space, undo heat generated sitting next to the laptop, "I keep tripping over the power cord", etc., etc.

So using Androids, Iphone apps, palm devices for various functions in game is outlawed at our table.

We only use books, paper, pen/pencil, dice, maps, whiteboard, and a calculator is allowed, though most of us calculate in our heads.

Nothing wrong with using electronics in your game, but for us - no can do.

GP

Totally get that from the distractions and atmosphere angles, and from the clutter on the table.

I get access to kit to try out, so I like to experiment. Generally use figures and counters at the table, but at the side of the table/ off table we've been testing tablets for rules reference.


At work I get to have more fun with a huge whiteboard and Net hooked up to a Wacom tablet. Going to try letting students draw 'in scenario' with that new PS Net app Beatsketcher and the Wii uDraw tablet I've just ordered.

At home that'll be experiment with gesture-based and visual RPG inputs to gameplay. Gimme, gimme - but not if they don't work into my 'gameflow', i.e. at the expense of interuptions or sweeping aside my beloved figures on table sitting on the marker pen map.

However, even as such options become more common I would like to think some of us will remain more untainted and that a 'no batteries' game will always be as welcome as any other

 

[dmfubar]

I have permission to print out a personal copy of a pdf from the company I work for using their high end Xerox (not color, unfortunately). From there I purchased a comb binding machine and just bind the books myself. Works well, looks good, and really does wonders when I print out small booklets for players with campaign information. The binding machine costs around $100 and then you have the cost of the actual combs and book covers, but with what I am saving on the pdf's, it all works out well.

 

[ancientvaults]

I have a cool guy at Staples that asks no questions and I just have a copy printed for personal use. However, I always have a print copy anyway and I like the printed pdf as a play copy.

If you are reading this WotC, no worries, nothing you have put out in some time has piqued my interest.

 

[Greylock]

I bought a series of PDFs through RPGNow or somesuch several years ago published by Silvan Publishing. Right there on the title page info, it said that Silvan allowed printing, but no Kinkos would print it for me and Kinkos was my only option. The PDFs were quite a number of pages - a campaign and several adventures.

Luckily, the man who wrote the books is also a good friend of mine, who lives nearby, so I got his written permission to go along with Silvans. He was quite interested/amused in the idea of me attempting to DM a game, but was also hoping for direct feedback about his work. Kinkos still wouldn't print them for me.

I ended up spending a ton of coin on printer ink and paper, and printed the damned things myself and "bound" them in binders from Walgreens. And never ran the damned game.

hth

 

[gamerprinter]

Luckily for me, I'm my own digital printer, though as mentioned above, I'm not a POD (at least not for perfect bound books - I do large format maps only), but I can laser print out all my sheets B/W or color, then punch holes to use as comb binding.

Books, I only purchase in hard copy. PDFs are for things like "In the Company of Minotaurs" and other race books put out by Rite Publishing, which consist of only a dozen pages more or less. However, rather than having a dozen bound books, I just unbind the first, punch the new book. And add in a larger comb to accomodate all the books, bind them together and throw on some clear plastic covers. My 'bound book' is about the size of real hard cover now, but it includes only race, spells, and magic item books.

So I get to avoid Kinko's, Staples and all those kinds of chain stores...

GP