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If you've purchased a hardcover PDF of a Pathfinder product, you may have gotten an email about a new download option. As of today, the PDFs for Paizo's Pathfinder Roleplaying Game hardcovers and the Inner Sea World Guide have been updated to include a more screen friendly Lite download option.
What are the differences?
The Lite versions of the PDF have been exported with compressed and simplified page backgrounds that still resonate with the branding used in all Pathfinder products. They've also had minor tweaks to their export options that make them more friendly to use on lower end machines and on tablets or phones.
The non-Lite versions of the PDF best represent their printed counterparts. They use the fully built backgrounds used in the print versions which contain higher quality background artwork and rendering.
The following products now have this download option available:
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Core Rulebook (OGL)
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary (OGL)
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: GameMastery Guide (OGL)
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Players Guide (OGL)
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary 2 (OGL)
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Magic (OGL)
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Combat (OGL)
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary 3 (OGL)
Pathfinder Campaign Setting: The Inner Sea World Guide (PFRPG)
Going forward, PDFs of hardcover products will have both a normal PDF download and a Lite PDF download. They will continue to be available in One File per Chapter and Single File formats.
Please use this thread to report any issues or ask questions about the Lite PDFs.
HUZZAH!
Sweet now to import them all to my phone before work.
The Core book is looking pretty great and running smoothly on my laptop. Thanks for doing this guys!
Updated the original post to clarify the differences between the download options.
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Well, as I feared, the poor server is overloaded, but I did manage to get Bestiary 3 Lite, and a thought hit me almost immediately: what about switching future actual print versions to the "Lite" edition? MASSIVE improvement in readability, for a minuscule reduction in physical appearance quality, if you ask me.
Even on my beast of a new system (i7-2600k, 16 GB RAM, 180 GB SSD), the Bestiary PDFs were slow to load, now I can scroll through it as fast as my mouse wheel will permit. Shocking amount of improvement here, folks.
I am amused that the lite single file version of the APG is 104 MB, whereas the previous non-lite single file version was 50.9 MB. The GMG lite is 145 MB, vs 70.7 MB before.
The core rules actually shrunk, though (49.7 MB now, 66.6 MB before). I haven't checked the rest yet.
Edit: the APG does render faster, though. Bigger size, faster display.
EXCELLENT! Kudos.
I am amused that the lite single file version of the APG is 104 MB, whereas the previous non-lite single file version was 50.9 MB. The GMG lite is 145 MB, vs 70.7 MB before.
The core rules actually shrunk, though (49.7 MB now, 66.6 MB before). I haven't checked the rest yet.
Edit: the APG does render faster, though. Bigger size, faster display.
Raster graphics are typically larger than vector graphics, but much easier (read: faster) to render (though I'm far from an expert)
Well, as I feared, the poor server is overloaded, but I did manage to get Bestiary 3 Lite, and a thought hit me almost immediately: what about switching future actual print versions to the "Lite" edition? MASSIVE improvement in readability, for a minuscule reduction in physical appearance quality, if you ask me.
Even on my beast of a new system (i7-2600k, 16 GB RAM, 180 GB SSD), the Bestiary PDFs were slow to load, now I can scroll through it as fast as my mouse wheel will permit. Shocking amount of improvement here, folks.
Wow, that' s a nice system! Maybe it's time to upgrade...
I love you guys.
Great news! Can't wait to try them out on the iPad!
Can't wait to check this out. Thank you! I think my iPad just shed a tear of joy.
Might resurrect my iPod Touch.
Might resurrect my iPod Touch.
The iPod Touch handles these beautifully! I had been trying them out on mine during testing and they're pretty fast :)
I've only had the chance to compare the speed of the Core Rulebook so far but the lite file is much faster on my iPad 2. Kudos to Paizo!
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I just downloaded one of these supposedly lite downloads. They are still terrible, giant, and slow. I won't buy another thing from you until you start offering a version that puts function ahead of form.
I will say they are significantly faster than the original terrible PDFs but not enough.
Classy ...
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I just downloaded one of these supposedly lite downloads. They are still terrible, giant, and slow. I won't buy another thing from you until you start offering a version that puts function ahead of form.
I will say they are significantly faster than the original terrible PDFs but not enough.
Work great on the iPad and that's col with me.
iPad just became the convention goers must have.
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So, downloaded APG, UM, and UC. Is there a reason that the APG file was almost twice the size of the non-lite version? I thought this was really odd. The other two were almost half the size, but the APG was 104 mb, while the normal file is 59 mb.
EDIT: Downloading ISWG-lite now, and its over 100mb more than the normal file as well. Anyone else see this as counter to what it should be? :/
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So, downloaded APG, UM, and UC. Is there a reason that the APG file was almost twice the size of the non-lite version? I thought this was really odd. The other two were almost half the size, but the APG was 104 mb, while the normal file is 59 mb.
EDIT: Downloading ISWG-lite now, and its over 100mb more than the normal file as well. Anyone else see this as counter to what it should be? :/
Not necessarily. Image rendering speed is not directly proportional to the size of the image, due to the various available methods of rasterizing (if necessary) and compressing such files. A bigger image may load more quickly than a smaller image, as a result.
So, downloaded APG, UM, and UC. Is there a reason that the APG file was almost twice the size of the non-lite version? I thought this was really odd. The other two were almost half the size, but the APG was 104 mb, while the normal file is 59 mb.
EDIT: Downloading ISWG-lite now, and its over 100mb more than the normal file as well. Anyone else see this as counter to what it should be? :/
There may something fishy going on. I'll do a double check on monday when we're back at the office. If there's anything else you encounter, please post to this thread.
Just tested the APG on my phone (Samsung Galaxy S), and it handled beautifully. :-)
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Classy ...I just downloaded one of these supposedly lite downloads. They are still terrible, giant, and slow. I won't buy another thing from you until you start offering a version that puts function ahead of form.
I will say they are significantly faster than the original terrible PDFs but not enough.
Yep. There's always gonna be one. ... "that guy".
I guess we ought to mention Rule No. 1 of PFS: DBAJ.I can't *wait* to get these on my iPad and iPod Touch. These are gonna be mandatory for game days!
Bravo, Paizo. Bra-vo.
Just tested the Core. WOW. I haven't thrown it on any of my portable devices yet but the difference on my desktop (quad-core i5) is huge. I expect I'll shift to using the Lite PDFs for all my prep work.
Thanks!
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I mentioned this in another thread, but it appears as though this one would be more proper: all but the GMG and IWSG download and open fine on my iPad. The other two are over 100 MB and will not open/download.
For the record, and to counter what "that guy" said, the lite versions are considerably and noticeably faster than before! Thanks for the awesomeness!
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I'm relatively new to Pathfinder and mostly lurk on these forums. I specifically logged into my account today after receiving the "Rulebooks Lite" notification email to say THANK YOU to the team at Paizo for drastically increasing the value of my purchase of the PDFs, encouraging me to purchase more of the books I'm missing in my collection.
Thanks again for considering your customers' needs and improving your product so significantly even after my transaction with you had completed months ago. Paizo has proven itself time and time again to be a firm worth supporting.
Just tested the APG on my phone (Samsung Galaxy S), and it handled beautifully. :-)
Just tested on my iPhone 4S and speedy peezy.
I was thinking about buying an ereader (Kindle and/or Nook) I was wondering how is the viewing look on a six (6) inch screen?
This is an amazing service. I've become something of an iPad since Christmas. It's so much faster looking through my PDFs now.
I <3 Paizo
Go Go Golem!
Is there any youtube vids showing the difference? Also can you purchase a lite pdf without the regular pdf version? I already have most of the regular pdf's.
Its too bad you can't get a bundle deal with the pdfs