I admit I did not do a search prior to posting this, but I just purchased the Pathfinder Core Rules PDF and downloaded some accompanying free PDFs. One of the fonts used is missing a capital A in every place it is used.
I can post a screen shot if necessary.
If it matters, I'm running Mac OS X 10.6.6 and viewing the PDFs in Apple's Preview.app.
Otherwise, the PDFs look great and I'm extremely happy that they are available. Especially because I can view them on my iPhone so they're easier on the go than on my laptop. Standing room only on the metro? No problem!
I admit I did not do a search prior to posting this, but I just purchased the Pathfinder Core Rules PDF and downloaded some accompanying free PDFs. One of the fonts used is missing a capital A in every place it is used.
I can post a screen shot if necessary.
If it matters, I'm running Mac OS X 10.6.6 and viewing the PDFs in Apple's Preview.app.
Otherwise, the PDFs look great and I'm extremely happy that they are available. Especially because I can view them on my iPhone so they're easier on the go than on my laptop. Standing room only on the metro? No problem!
It's a known issue, but has to do with the Apple font library I believe it was. I have a Mac at work, and it does it too all the PDF's. However, if you use Adobe Reader for Mac it should work fine.
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I admit I did not do a search prior to posting this, but I just purchased the Pathfinder Core Rules PDF and downloaded some accompanying free PDFs. One of the fonts used is missing a capital A in every place it is used.
I can post a screen shot if necessary.
If it matters, I'm running Mac OS X 10.6.6 and viewing the PDFs in Apple's Preview.app.
Otherwise, the PDFs look great and I'm extremely happy that they are available. Especially because I can view them on my iPhone so they're easier on the go than on my laptop. Standing room only on the metro? No problem!
This problem was fixed, then unfixed.
You have to use Adobe Reader on your Mac to fix this problem.
Edit: It is a Mac issue not a Pazio issue
This problem was fixed, then unfixed.
Oh, good. I'm not going crazy.
This problem was fixed, then unfixed.Oh, good. I'm not going crazy.
You're not going cr zy, you're just not seeing ll the bund nt ' 's.
::ducks::
Chief Technical Officer
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It has never been fixed on the desktop OS; it's been a problem with every version of Preview under OS X 10.6. (It wasn't a problem in 10.5 or earlier.)
It did get fixed in a recent iOS update for iPhones and iPads, so I'm hopeful it will be fixed in a revision of the desktop OS soon.
On a related matter, when I copy and paste from the core PDF every word that has an 'f' in it is separated with a space with the letters preceding the f than the f and all letters following.
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Chief Technical Officer
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On a related matter, when I copy and paste from the core PDF every word that has an 'f' in it is separated with a space with the letters preceding the f than the f and all letters following.
You'll find it's not every F—it's just ones that are part of ligatures (that is, where certain groupings of characters are represented with a single character for typesetting purposes).
This is a problem inherent to the PDF format. Essentially, during the PDF creation process, the individual characters in the ligature are replaced with the ligature itself, and the PDF format doesn't actually store what the original characters were. When you copy text containing a ligature, your PDF reader essentially has to guess what those characters originally were, and sometimes it will guess wrong, especially when it comes to the spacing around them.
You'll find a similar issue with text that's presented in an all-capitals font—the PDF doesn't actually contain the information about whether the original letters were uppercase or lowercase, so it will just guess.
The reason the PDF format doesn't store that data is that the Adobe created the PDF standard with archiving and final document delivery as their primary goal; they didn't intend for people to get data back *out* of it. And even though its clear that many, many people use it for that (in spite of its deficiencies), they apparently have no interest in modifying the format to make it work better for that.
In short, there's no good solution for this problem, but you may find that different PDF viewers are better at guessing than others.
When it comes to the core rules, though, you might want to grab your text from the PRD instead; it doesn't have the same problems.
Lots of great responses, here. Thanks, everyone! And great insight into PDFs, Vic.
I can confirm that in iOS 4.2.1 (I show Build 8C148), the A's do display.
Time to send some feedback to Apple, for what it's worth.
Oh, and another fun thing I noticed:
When I take a header, such as Generating a Character (bottom left of pg. 14 of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook), copy it, and paste it into another program, it's mixed case! geNerAtiNg A ChArACter
Is that also a quirk of the PDF format, a flaw in the way OS X handles PDF documents, or just somebody being silly? Or some combination? :) -- Edit: That's a silly question as the font in question appears to be all-caps, and you explained that in your post.
Oh, and another fun thing I noticed:
When I take a header, such as Generating a Character (bottom left of pg. 14 of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook), copy it, and paste it into another program, it's mixed case! geNerAtiNg A ChArACter
That happens to me in Foxit Reader but not in Adobe Reader. Depends on the software. That's why I usually use Adobe for copy/paste but Foxit for actually reading it.
And one of these days I'd like to find a reader that doesn't trash the images when I copy them - I design a LOT of my own encounters, and always have to spend time on the image because when I copy/paste the image (no matter which I use) the transparent pixels get botched and end up black.
In fact, I think I'll post about that.
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Chief Technical Officer
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...when I copy/paste the image (no matter which I use) the transparent pixels get botched and end up black.
The part you're seeing as black is what's called an "alpha channel," which is used (among other things) for transparency. When you go from software or file formats that use alpha channels and transparency to software or file formats that don't, something along the way will decide how to convert it (depending on your configuration, it's probably either the OS itself or the application you're pasting into).
So you have a couple of choices.
First, you could try to find some software that lets you control how that transition is handled. That probably means some kind of image editing software.
Second, you could try to paste the image into a different application—ideally one that understands alpha channels and transparency, or at least one that defaults to white instead of black.
For specific advice, I can only tell you what I use; Graphic Converter for OS X. It has a function called "Flatten Alpha Channel," which sets the background to whatever color you have currently selected as the background color in your toolbox and then permanently renders the image against that color.
If I open the Core Rules PDF in either Preview or Skim on Lion 10.7.1 (also seen in 10.7), the app locks up after a few seconds.
It's not size - the Tome of Horrors is fine and the machine has 12 Gb.
What do Paizo do to their poor PDFs? ;)
This is actually a problem with Lion and is being discussed in this thread.