What Makes Gaming Books as PDFs Desirable?

[ProfessorCirno]

So you're saying PDFs have no character. We used to say it wasn't a real character sheet until it had a stain of some sort on it. If you have an iPad, the last thing you want is a stain.

One person's stain of character is another person's "gross," I suppose

The source book also makes a nice companion when I'm in a waiting room for a dentist or whatever and I don't want to read last January's "Sports Illustrated" or "Field & Stream".

See, that's one of the bigger reasons why I prefer digital so much. It's easy to carry. You have your one source book at the waiting room, I have my whole library ;p

 

[nedjer]

Foxit is free, and I think it does most of that stuff. Definitely does forms.

I hope some excellent cross-platform format catches on, but it's going to have to have both a high penetration amongst consumers, and ease of implementation for publishers, to do so.

Some way to auto-convert other formats (for example, PDFs), would be awesome, too.

Foxit Reader is free but the full editor is $99. A snip compared to Acrobat Distiller but more than the zero cost to use any text or html editor on the planet.

Probably more significantly, building interactivity into PDFs is a major time-sink and any interactivity is immediately locked up in the seealed and often DRM'd PDF format.

html is the 'excellent cross-platform format' that has caught on and swept aside every previous format including books and PDFs. TRPGs may be behind on that, due to TRPGs preoccupation with printed rules/ company's pre-occupation with selling print formats and piracy fears.

However, every PC (and most handheld devices) have a web browser and it's possible to make it very simply to let readers apply their own styling and changes in ways a PDF can't. Allowing readers to simply click or drag n' drop to apply backgrounds, custom bullet sets, themed illustrations of choice, resize fonts . . . can't be done with PDF.

Equally, interaction in terms of customising rule sets, updating rule sets, adding multimedia to rule sets, making version changes by linking out to additional resources or linking in for quick reference to the rules . . . would require PDF editing software and PDF editing skills, as compared to the the simple creation of standard hyperlinks or automated updating. Essentially, PDF is a graphics format, used to package text documents with the option of bolting on some basic interactivity.

Auto-converting from PDF to html is a bind which involves removing various levels of styling. Converting from html to PDF is a click n' go operation in most browsers, e.g. I regularly use Chrome and Firefox extensions to print out cut down rules/ extracts, which are converted aka burned as PDFs for those who want them. E.g. some handheld devices don't handle html as well as they should/ will yet.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I know, it's different file types, blah blah blah, etc. . .

But, that aside, for those who might still believe that the time for "e-books" is not even nigh, let alone now:

Check this out.

That's where we're at. Common sense dictates we're only going to go more that way, as time ticks on by.

Just thought it was interesting anyway, and quite possibly relevant to the thread.

 

[DragonLancer]

What Makes Gaming Books as PDFs Desirable?

For me, absolutely nothing. I don't like them. I want the real thing in my hand. The only time a PDF is desirable for me is if it is an out of print product that I am looking for.

 

[nedjer]

I know, it's different file types, blah blah blah, etc. . .

But, that aside, for those who might still believe that the time for "e-books" is not even nigh, let alone now:

Check this out.

That's where we're at. Common sense dictates we're only going to go more that way, as time ticks on by.

Just thought it was interesting anyway, and quite possibly relevant to the thread.

Exactly. There's maybe a bit of a rich iPad owner stocks up on rich iStore content at work there but the Asus, Google Pad, . . . is already unstoppable. Much of the content will be pushed in ebook and pdf formats to allow heavy duty DRM. However, all these are browser/ html from opening the box/ sim devices and html is the medium for free, open and customisable content.

Why wouldn't anyone want to be able to 'skin' your own RPG and PC sheets with a click or a drag in the same way as your Windows or Mac desktop?

Why wouldn't anyone want to select and position your own graphics and other multimedia?

Why wouldn't anyone want to use interactive, design game RPGs to design and sell their own add-ons - be they scenarios, styling, settings, apps, image packs, . . . using free, open systems as a platform to sell services instead of leaving a few companies to shape the game and print one size fits all product?

 

[IronWolf]

Probably more significantly, building interactivity into PDFs is a major time-sink and any interactivity is immediately locked up in the seealed and often DRM'd PDF format.

I will likely eat these words in a few more years as bandwidth continues to increase (i.e. some of us live in rather rural areas and our broadband is falling behind the city folk) and computing speeds continue to increase, but I don't think I want a lot of interactivity in my PDF files. I like being able to search them and I like a bookmarked table of contents. I don't really want embedded videos and such.

PDF forms for character sheets are well and good, but I can find those for most systems I play, so I don't feel I am lacking for that either.

html is the 'excellent cross-platform format' that has caught on and swept aside every previous format including books and PDFs. TRPGs may be behind on that, due to TRPGs preoccupation with printed rules/ company's pre-occupation with selling print formats and piracy fears.

Hopefully there will be continued improvements, but for the moment there are still certain sites that work better in one browser versus another.

However, every PC (and most handheld devices) have a web browser and it's possible to make it very simply to let readers apply their own styling and changes in ways a PDF can't. Allowing readers to simply click or drag n' drop to apply backgrounds, custom bullet sets, themed illustrations of choice, resize fonts . . . can't be done with PDF.

I don't have much desire to make any of these modifications. I don't have any PDFs where I think I can do a better job formatting than the original designer. And I'd rather spend my time reading and prepping for a game than re-editing the sourcebook I am using.

Equally, interaction in terms of customising rule sets, updating rule sets, adding multimedia to rule sets, making version changes by linking out to additional resources or linking in for quick reference to the rules . . . would require PDF editing software and PDF editing skills, as compared to the the simple creation of standard hyperlinks or automated updating. Essentially, PDF is a graphics format, used to package text documents with the option of bolting on some basic interactivity.

I don't make enough house rules to warrant this. Typically it is easier for me to just create an appendix if I am going to make house rules and add it as an additional file to note these changes. I don't house rule a lot though.

Likely it just sounds like our usage patterns vary significantly with you wanting to customize sourcebooks when they are released whereas I treat them more like actual books that I wouldn't necessarily be customizing either.

Auto-converting from PDF to html is a bind which involves removing various levels of styling. Converting from html to PDF is a click n' go operation in most browsers, e.g. I regularly use Chrome and Firefox extensions to print out cut down rules/ extracts, which are converted aka burned as PDFs for those who want them. E.g. some handheld devices don't handle html as well as they should/ will yet.

Good point for having your cake and eating it to. *If* the conversion from html to PDF can handle creating the PDF with bookmarks and retain the find functionality. Otherwise the conversion process stripped a lot of what was of value to the PDF format, which currently is my preferred format.

 

[Umbran]

Check this out.

That's where we're at.

Ah, but if you read carefully and critically, you discover that the article lacks the information to tell us where that location is.

Amazon sold more ebooks than hardcovers. That's cool. But how much of the hardcover trade is Amazon? And how much of the overall book trade (in terms of number of units and $$) are hardcovers? Without those pieces of information, the article is meaningless. It lacks context to tell exactly how big a milestone this event is.

Amazon specifically withheld the unit sales numbers you would need to divine what this means. Interesting, that. The article even tells you: “Amazon is trying to make the point that they dominate this business the way Apple dominates music sales,” said James McQuivey, a media analyst with Forrester Research.

They have a point to make, and a profit motive behind that point. Be wary about how they say things...

 

[IronWolf]

Ah, but if you read carefully and critically, you discover that the article lacks the information to tell us where that location is.

Amazon sold more ebooks than hardcovers. That's cool. But how much of the hardcover trade is Amazon? And how much of the overall book trade (in terms of number of units and $$) are hardcovers? Without those pieces of information, the article is meaningless. It lacks context to tell exactly how big a milestone this event is.

Yeah, I saw that headline yesterday and at first I was like "wow, the ebooks are really taking off better than I thought." But then I saw it was simply more than hardbacks. I'm not sure how well hardbacks sell typically, so I don't really have a point of reference as to how significant that event is.

 

[Katana_Geldar]

Good point for having your cake and eating it to. *If* the conversion from html to PDF can handle creating the PDF with bookmarks and retain the find functionality. Otherwise the conversion process stripped a lot of what was of value to the PDF format, which currently is my preferred format.

Yeah, and sometimes the searchability of a pdf.

 

[Umbran]

Yeah, I saw that headline yesterday and at first I was like "wow, the ebooks are really taking off better than I thought." But then I saw it was simply more than hardbacks. I'm not sure how well hardbacks sell typically, so I don't really have a point of reference as to how significant that event is.

I found some reference in an article over on CNN.com:

"E-books made up about 8.5 percent of all book sales, according to the report, up from less than 3 percent for the same time period last year."

So, in some sense, it is amazing growth - it seems ebook sales were up 207%. Any time you see amazing growth, you have to wonder if it will be sustained. Lots of folks may have bought Kindles and iPads, but that doesn't mean that use will continue in the long term.

In another sense - ebooks are still less than 10% of book sales. That in and of itself is not a death knell for the physical articles.