Pathfinder on Kindle?


Technology


Hey paizoans!

Just wondering if Paizo products are currently or will ever be available on kindle or other e book products. I am currently looking for a way to have all my Pathfinder stuff at my fingertips without lugging a laptop around and I think the kindle looks cool. But I didn't see any of your products in the kindle store and I don't know if your pdfs will work on it or not. Just tryng to get some advice before buying one. What does the Paizo community say?


Jay wrote:

Hey paizoans!

Just wondering if Paizo products are currently or will ever be available on kindle or other e book products. I am currently looking for a way to have all my Pathfinder stuff at my fingertips without lugging a laptop around and I think the kindle looks cool. But I didn't see any of your products in the kindle store and I don't know if your pdfs will work on it or not. Just tryng to get some advice before buying one. What does the Paizo community say?

If you're rocking one of the small / black and white Kindles, I don't recommend Pathfinder PDFs on them. I don't own one of the bigger Kindles and haven't tried that; I assume it's better but I can't say.

I heartily recommend the wee Kindle for reading normal books -- but not this.

Grand Lodge

I do have my whole Pathfinder collection on an iPad. Works fine.

But I have to admid - the PDFs are rather large and contain a lot of graphics. A lot of ebook readers might struggle.

Thod

Grand Lodge

The Kindle itself will not work very well, I would recommend checking out the Archos 101. Same size as the iPad for a fraction the cost (16GB for 349.99USD). I'm hoping to get one when the tax returns come in next year.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

For each of our electronic products, we select the appropriate format(s) to offer based on that format's ability to present our products in the best light. The ePub format is ideal for electronic books that are mostly text, but it lacks the support that the PDF format has for precise layout of images and special textual formatting.

Because of this, only the Pathfinder Tales fiction line is available in ePub form at this time; the rest of our Pathfinder products are available only in PDF form.

ePubs can easily be converted for use with your Kindle, and I'm told the result is as good as the native format. Kindle apparently supports viewing PDFs directly, but it apparently isn't the best possible device for viewing PDFs.


Like the OP, I want to store and read my RPG material on a digital device (rather than lug around books). My decision path so far is as follows:

1. eInk devices > LCD monitors
While laptops or tablet devices like Apple's iPad offer full color, I find I can't read an entire book on the LCD monitors that they use. eInk devices (like the Kindle) support only grey-scale but are much easier on the eyes. Also, their batteries last much longer.

2. 1024 x 768 screen minimum
Until recently, most eInk readers only featured 600x800 screens - too small to display a whole page from a nearly A4 sized RPG rulebook readably. Which is why I am waiting for the new generation of eInk devices with 1024x768 resolution that is coming out now.

3. Must support PDF and other formats
Most devices, including the Kindle, only support a narrow range of file formats and don't resolve graphics-heavy PDFs well. However, there is a growing number of devices using more open platforms.

FWIIW, I have my eyes on the Pixelar 9" (made by Hanlin), scheduled for release in late November.

Silver Crusade

I'm also curious to see how the PDFs look on the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which will eventually be coming out WiFi only (without a carrier plan).


Jay wrote:

Hey paizoans!

Just wondering if Paizo products are currently or will ever be available on kindle or other e book products. I am currently looking for a way to have all my Pathfinder stuff at my fingertips without lugging a laptop around and I think the kindle looks cool. But I didn't see any of your products in the kindle store and I don't know if your pdfs will work on it or not. Just tryng to get some advice before buying one. What does the Paizo community say?

Well, if you download the PRD, you could paste it into openoffice and then export it as a .pdf. Though, of course, that wouldn't work for the APG or any other extra books. I'm hopefully getting a nook for Christmas, so I'll wait to weigh in entirely then.


To clarify, you can open a Paizo gamebook .pdf on even the small Kindles; you just probably won't actually be able to read it at that size, and you can't zoom , adjust the font, etc. Basically its .pdf support is not as good as its support for other formats.

(I understand the bigger/color Kindles have a better .pdf reader, but I have no experience with it.)

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Dire Mongoose wrote:

To clarify, you can open a Paizo gamebook .pdf on even the small Kindles; you just probably won't actually be able to read it at that size, and you can't zoom , adjust the font, etc. Basically its .pdf support is not as good as its support for other formats.

(I understand the bigger/color Kindles have a better .pdf reader, but I have no experience with it.)

Not being able to zoom would be a limitation imposed by the Kindle, so that could change with other hardware. Not being able to adjust the font is (effectively) inherent to the PDF format, so that's unlikely to change with other hardware.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I have been lusting over the ePads, a 10" tablet running google Android 2.1, that have been coming out of China for the past 2 months.

It is approximately $200, which is a fraction of the price of an iPad. Its Wifi only, and with the pinch and touch screen that we love from the iPad, I believe that is what I am saving my pennies up for.

I expect it will be upgraded to Google Android 2.2 over the next couple of months.

I did get to see the Galaxy Samsung Tag at Best buy last week. Its a 7" tablet running Android 2.2, and I found the format very readable, expecially if you turn it sideways, but the Galaxy Tab required a contract with Verizon or Sprint as it was a 4G device. But I might simply pick up a 7" factor Android Tablet and save $50.

Robyn


I went with the iPad and have been very pleased. There are a number of PDF readers to choose from as well as ePub readers. Between it, GoodReader, and a Dropbox account I have access to my full library without taking up all the memory. I got it primarily to read PDFs away from the computer but it has ended up replacing my laptop, as my mobile computing needs were really quite basic.

Sovereign Court

Dire Mongoose wrote:
To clarify, you can open a Paizo gamebook .pdf on even the small Kindles; you just probably won't actually be able to read it at that size, and you can't zoom , adjust the font, etc. Basically its .pdf support is not as good as its support for other formats.

You CAN zoom... at least I can. The first pdf I ever tried was the Savage Worlds game book. Almost the perfect size. But just recently, I tried Orcs of Golarion and it worked fine. It takes a longer time than I find useful, but it DOES zoom in.

To zoom in on a pdf using a Kindle, press the "Aa" button. The pop-up gives options of 150% and 200% (and others). Select what you feel is appropriate and you go back to your original page with a "zoom" box overlaid on it. You can move the box around the page to the area you want to enlarge, and then press the select button.

It's not simple or easy, but it CAN be done. But honestly, pdf's are NOT what the Kindle is good at rendering. If you will be using a LOT of pdfs, get an Ipad or laptop.

Liberty's Edge

Daeglin wrote:
I got it primarily to read PDFs away from the computer but it has ended up replacing my laptop, as my mobile computing needs were really quite basic.

+1 Ditto!


Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Society Subscriber

I am just getting into Pathfinder and use a Kindle DX for reading the PDFs while travelling on the train to and from work.

Currently I am reading the Core Rulebook and it 'works' except it is a bit slow in the page rendering part.

Usually I read my PDFs in a zoomed in portrait mode and use the joystick to move around the page. The problem is that the Core Rulebook takes too long to render with a frustrating wait in-between each move. Previously I have used the same method on Shadowrun and the Dresden Files RPG and found no issues.

What I have found is that if I rotate the Kindle DX into landscape mode once the page has rendered it's quick to move around the page by using the Prev (scrolls page up) and Next (scrolls page down) page buttons. When moving to the next page it takes about 15 seconds on average. So this method works ok if you are reading the book page by page but if you want to use the Kindle at the gaming table, forget it.

It would be great if the PDFs could be released in a alternative lite version where the background and border graphic have been removed. Not only would this improve rendering speeed in PDF readers but also save ink when printing.

Oh, on a final note, I tried the 'One File per Chapter' PDFs and found no improvement on the Kindle DX.

Sovereign Court

Hi all -
I have a Sprint Moment Android Phone at the moment. I have Adobe's PDF reader and have used much of my collection of Paizo PDF's many times. Having them on the microSD card. Sure, it's a 2x2 inch screen, but it has worked in a pitch (and one of the reasons I'm asking Santa Clause to give me the Galaxy Android Phone and it's 4x4 inch screen).
I also have a Toshiba Satellite netbook - the 13 inch monitor version. I had looked at the iPad, Kindle 2, Nook and many other options for my PDF and gaming needs (including the Galaxy Tab), however while they would all work well for my PDF's they would not work with HeroLab. Thus the EVOL WifeFIEND was 'required' to put out extra for the netbook (about $300).
The 13" netbook is perfect - the 10" is likely better - but it has so much less processing power that its size (about the size of the core rulebook) made it not worthwhile. The bigger laptops with 15-17" monitors were just too big for reading PDF's in the car or other locations while waiting.

I suppose it matters for the size that you want and how much you want to spend. Additionally, what other things you might want it for. For me, reading my PDF's and using HeroLab were the reasons for my choice.
Hope it helps.

Theocrat Issak


Just thought I'd update ya'll on this topic - got a nook color for Christmas - posting from it right now. It seems to work fine with pdfs, though image-heavy content such as the core books seems to slow it down. Sticking with the prd for now.

Liberty's Edge

I am giving my wife a nook color for christmas, I will test the PDFs on there as well and see how they run.


I have a Nook Color and it opens the PDF's without too much of an issue. The size of the PDF's can make it a little laggy at times.


Got the nook color a few days ago. It will read and zoom on the PDFs. The PDFs are quite slow to load, though. The artwork in the books is gorgeous, but it slows down the digital file significantly.

A PDF without the artwork would be great. I tried to save a text version from my PDFs, but the PDF is secured.

Help us Paizo. Simple files and/or a nook/Kindle file. I'd even pay for another file if it would work.

Shadow Lodge

As one of the resident Android users, I've had the opportunity to try out a number of devices. I understand that Vic sees an importance to maintaining the fantastic visual quality of their rulebooks, but I will continue to say that I wish we had a low-image version for use on devices. Right now, the hardware isn't advancing fast enough to handle those monster files.

From my experience so far, what I've found on all pad devices (which includes two androids and an iPad at this point) is that the PDFs are really good for reading cover-to-cover, but are outright awful for looking things up. When you read cover-to-cover, the device has time to pre-render upcoming pages, which makes page turning absolutely seamless. The problem though is that it's hard to "thumb through" a PDF, and the rendering times is slow enough that being off by five pages means spending a minute trying to get to the right one. I wind up using the d20pfsrd whenever I have can when looking up rules. If you're an Android user, I strongly ponying up the money for ezPDF reader, it's quite a bit better than the standard thing.

I got a Nook Color before Christmas, and rooted, it's a fantastic device. It's a little small for the game table, but I love its form factor for when space is a problem. It's "good enough" to use, but it's hardware is a little lackluster. It does reasonably well, but the proprietary and locked Android OS that can't be run through Clockwork Recovery means dealing with a kind of esoteric rooting scheme or using a SIM card based root, which has its own problems. Rooted though, the Nook Color though is fantastic for carrying around the PDFs for casual reading though and I actually prefer it to its bigger brothers when sitting in bed or on the couch just reading.

I recently picked up a Vewsonic g Tablet for right around $180 as well. For the money, it's one of the best things you can buy at the moment, but it too has significant issues. As a full-sized 10 inch pad it's absolutely the perfect size for reading PDFs at the game table, but it's a little big and bulky for casual use. The built-in Android OS is absolutely horrendously awful, but it takes a root really well, and running CyanogenMod is pretty much an identical experience to having a large-sized Android phone. It's screen though is horrible - the viewing angles suck and I've had a friend have to return his because being capacitive it didn't register his finger presses very well (it was a defective model we think). This device is a bit of a learning experience actually.

All of this research and device use though really makes me want the new eee Pad by Asus. The eee Pad runs Honeycomb (rather than the Gingerbread mods that the other pads I own use), has a 10" screen, and it can support a full-sized keyboard (which comes with a bonus 6 hour battery pack in addition to the built-in 8 hours). It's also reasonably priced ($399) for a WiFi only version. It runs a Tegra 2 1GHz, which is top-of-the-line at the moment, but really though, we're still good processor or two out from the point that we can search these PDFs very effectively. Even my laptop with an i5 processor struggles on some PDFs, and when you consider the pads are working off of a fraction of that processing power, it's a wonder they work as well as they do. Until those processors ramp up, we're stuck trying to use the PDFs Paizo supplies.

Silver Crusade

MisterSlanky wrote:
If you're an Android user, I strongly ponying up the money for ezPDF reader, it's quite a bit better than the standard thing.

Seconded. Worth every penny of the $2.

Grand Lodge

Slipstream wrote:
MisterSlanky wrote:
If you're an Android user, I strongly ponying up the money for ezPDF reader, it's quite a bit better than the standard thing.
Seconded. Worth every penny of the $2.

I'll have to check it out then. I got it free when Amazon had it as the "free app of the day"

Sovereign Court

Back in December when I last posted, I was using an Android Samsung Moment, but now I'm using the Android Galaxy S Epic.
I was using just Aldiko for ePub reading. The Aldiko program was so good for reading ePub's that I canceled my tales subscription after reading the last two books exclusively via my phone's 4.3" screen.
The Aldiko program also views PDF's as well as Acrobat Reader for the Android. Both have their ups and downs - but here the screen size for the PDF's is rather hard to read (even with my 20/20 eyesight). Even with zooming in, it's a bit difficult, but when you're out with the EVOL WifeFIEND and don't want to be bored, it's worthwhile.
Also, now that the Kindle really works well on Android phones, I'm now not just limited to the ePub format, as I have tons of .mobi format books. I haven't tried to use Kindle for Android on the phone - only because I hadn't even considered it until now.
I wish Planet Stories was also available in ePub/PDF Format. As it is I'm not reading those novels because I no longer need the printed book.
With Android expanding its OS, I hope companies don't just think they need to support the iPhone/iPad and produce only programs that use those very limited carrier options.


MisterSlanky wrote:

As one of the resident Android users, I've had the opportunity to try out a number of devices. I understand that Vic sees an importance to maintaining the fantastic visual quality of their rulebooks, but I will continue to say that I wish we had a low-image version for use on devices. Right now, the hardware isn't advancing fast enough to handle those monster files.

Just throwing in my +1 for a low image version or at least one without the graphic heavy borders and backgrounds.


That's pretty much a given with EPUB or mobi/Kindle formatting. Art involved can be anchored in the text (no text wrapping), embedding fonts just bloats the file size (and I don't think Kindle allows that anyway). So what you would get is a stripped-down, deconstructed design. I was looking into how to create tables in a easy-to-read format for both electronic formats (it would have to be done with CSS tagging, iirc) but have lost the current motivation to dedicate any more time to that endeavor.

Grand Lodge

Vic Wertz wrote:

ePubs can easily be converted for use with your Kindle, and I'm told the result is as good as the native format. Kindle apparently supports viewing PDFs directly, but it apparently isn't the best possible device for viewing PDFs.

Whats the best way to read PDFs AS PDFs on my iPhone 4? I transferred to epub and it screwed it (Using Stanza to convert) but surely there is a way to view them as they actually are...


GoodReader is one of the best ones out there IMHO.

Grand Lodge

Pale wrote:
GoodReader is one of the best ones out there IMHO.

So you can upload the PDFs directly as PDFs or convert them to text? Ideally I want to upload my pathfinder PDFs to my iphone.


GoodReader is a PDF reader. It's about 5 bucks or so in the app store and worth it, again, IMHO.

Also, you have to work through iTunes, but I think that works the same for iPhones and iPads, right? (I'm an iPad user.)


I tried to use the sony reader (PSR-650) to read the inner seas guide not to long ago. While I could read half a page at a time (with the screen in landscape mode) the reader couldn't handle the large file sizes.

I'm hoping blackberry's playbook would be a better alternative. Has anyone tried running pdf's on it?

And I'd like to add, while the inner sea guide gave me trouble, the pathfinder adventure module i downloaded worked a treat =)


If you want to avoid iTunes for putting a .pdf on your iDevice. Use Dropbox. Just upload your pdf to it. Then download Dropbox on your iDevice.


The biggest problem I have with the Paizo pdfs is the rendering time, no matter the reader I use. Even on my pc using foxit they are considerably slower than any other pdf I have. I understand the amount of crosslinks in them for reference purposes, but for the pdfs I really wish the artwork could be toned down. The rendering time makes using them as a reference a painful experience.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I have been using my NookColor from Barnes and Noble for months now. I upgraded the operating system of this ereader to Android 2.3 (http://www.cyanogenmod.com/).

I have been very pleased to use ezPDF reader to read my original PDF files, plus I added the d20pfssrd sites PDF for a tighter PDF to use for monsters and the basic rulebook (yes things to run quicker without the graphics inherent in the Paizo books).

I added to this 3 android apps that allow me to even more quickly access spells and feats from Pathfinder (Spells (the best of the bunch), Pathfinder Compendium and Spellbook by shaking earth).

With a 7" screen, I find this the perfect format for gaming and GMing.

Sovereign Court

I had no idea about the Spells app for Android. Thanks for letting us know. It never came up in my searches before on the Market that I recall.

Grand Lodge

I picked up two of the Chinese Androids but buggered if I can get them to show PDFs.

The chinese ones seem to have 2.1 as firmware making it difficult to upgrade.

DO NOT buy any 16mg or 32mg chips from Ebay or China - they are shonky as all get out and the Androids can not read them though Chip readers still work them sometimes.


I got the new galaxy tab 10.1, and am using ezPDF Reader, and it works really well for a single PDF at a time.


Torchbearer wrote:
The biggest problem I have with the Paizo pdfs is the rendering time, no matter the reader I use. Even on my pc using foxit they are considerably slower than any other pdf I have. I understand the amount of crosslinks in them for reference purposes, but for the pdfs I really wish the artwork could be toned down. The rendering time makes using them as a reference a painful experience.

The slowness is most likely because each Pathfinder pdf is around 500 pages worth of cross links and art and you're running out of memory. The best solution for tablets would be for Paizo to release each chapter of the all their books as individual pdf files.

Shadow Lodge

Xabulba wrote:
The slowness is most likely because each Pathfinder pdf is around 500 pages worth of cross links and art and you're running out of memory. The best solution for tablets would be for Paizo to release each chapter of the all their books as individual pdf files.

Paizo does release each chapter of their books as individual PDFs. Interestingly, the full PDF is labeled as the "alt" file.

The length of time it takes to render a Paizo PDF can be traced back to do things, regardless of the platform you are using. One, the PDFs are packed with graphics. Paizo really appreciates good layout and good art, and they're not willing to compromise (at this time) on their production values. This means that the PDFs are huge, probably larger than any other PDF you're opening regularly, even when broken out by chapter (I'm looking at you Inner Sea World Guide). Secondly, rendering times are directly related to the processing power your device is capable of. We're used to seeing tablets everywhere nowadays, but we often forget that they really are worse than a five year old laptop when it comes to their processing power. Try opening a huge PDF on a computer that's five years old and see how long it takes - then remember that the processor in your tablet is still not as powerful. Until we come up with a technology that can manage the size and power expectations of a tablet, we're kind of stuck with sub-par rendering times.


d20PFSrd.com has actually a downloadable version of most of the site content in a structured html format. The interesting thing is that it might be the perfect package to convert into one of the ebook formats and then put on devices like the Kindle.

I've been meaning to try this out myself but I haven't had time to work on it.


Vic Wertz wrote:

For each of our electronic products, we select the appropriate format(s) to offer based on that format's ability to present our products in the best light. The ePub format is ideal for electronic books that are mostly text, but it lacks the support that the PDF format has for precise layout of images and special textual formatting.

Because of this, only the Pathfinder Tales fiction line is available in ePub form at this time; the rest of our Pathfinder products are available only in PDF form.

ePubs can easily be converted for use with your Kindle, and I'm told the result is as good as the native format. Kindle apparently supports viewing PDFs directly, but it apparently isn't the best possible device for viewing PDFs.

I understand that most of the Pathfinder game books wouldn't work well as Kindle books, but I think releasing some of the mostly text game books, that are mostly background info, for ebooks would be great.

I've recently been trying to read up on all the world history and cultural descriptions, such as The Inner Sea World Guide, and I'd love to have all that text on my Kindle instead of the giant hardcover I have.

Scarab Sages

As I posted here (yes, necromancy, and yes, I'm sorry), I've tried the big pdfs on the latest Kindle. It takes a while to render each page, due, I believe, to the fancy layout (and possibly the crosslinking, as Xabulba commented) being flattened every few seconds. The Pathfinder Society pdf works perfectly, though, as it has very little art and a flat design. I'll try the individual chapter pdfs, but I'll probably not use the Kindle at all.

Community / Forums / Gamer Life / Entertainment / Technology / Pathfinder on Kindle? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.