More and more people start using tablets for RPG PDFs. The default format for paizo PDFs is not greatly suited for tablets, as the fonts are too small to read it comfortably in full-page view, and scrolling is kind of annoying...
The solution would be:
Half-page, tablet versions of the PDFs, preferably in landscape view. Dungeon and Dragon magazines already do the landscape page stuff and have larger fonts, but it's not quite perfect (and most likely a random strike of luck, as the format predates tablets).
Any chance of getting tablet-optimized PDFs from Paizo?
i'd like to chime in here as well. I put a LOT of my PDF files on my iPad and the fonts and artwork don't always render very well. especiall my older PDF files - in some cases, the PDF file is partly unreadble due to formatting issues. A solution to my iPad reader issues would be greatly appreciated!
Just spend a couple of bucks and get the PDF Notes app. It pre-loads pdfs. Once that is done they read just like books. Flip pages as fast as you can no scroling necessary. Font is still small but readable.
You know with goodreader and Ibooks you can zoom in on the pages?
I do have goodreader, and I can use the PDFs. It does work, but its far from optimal, as the size factor of the device (and of most other tables) definitely works better with a half-page landscape format than with the old book-style format.
It's not a necessity, but it's something that I think would increase the attractiveness of PDFs quite a bit. And Paizo is in a unique position to innovate here.
I assume you are aware of the Crop function in GoodReader Malaclypse? One issue is that there is a great deal of margine space. If you crop most of Paizo's PDFs down correctly they fit vey well at just about correct print size.
The issue of rendering older PDFs is most likely due to Apple's Quartz rendering then Paizo's setup. Quartz has had many noted issues that don't play nice with Adobie's format. Totally putting on Apple here. For example I was able to read an old WotC extra PDF on iOS 3 and 4 all the way up to iOS 4.2. Then I updated to iOS 4.3 and wham, everything goes black. ended up having to resale the file in a different color profile (unfortunately B&W) to get whatever Apple did to Quartz to stop freaking out. 100% totally Apple.
I assume you are aware of the Crop function in GoodReader Malaclypse? One issue is that there is a great deal of margine space. If you crop most of Paizo's PDFs down correctly they fit vey well at just about correct print size.
The issue of rendering older PDFs is most likely due to Apple's Quartz rendering then Paizo's setup. Quartz has had many noted issues that don't play nice with Adobie's format. Totally putting on Apple here. For example I was able to read an old WotC extra PDF on iOS 3 and 4 all the way up to iOS 4.2. Then I updated to iOS 4.3 and wham, everything goes black. ended up having to resale the file in a different color profile (unfortunately B&W) to get whatever Apple did to Quartz to stop freaking out. 100% totally Apple.
Yes, I understand.
I guess I was unclear. The problem is not that I have a technical problem with the PDFs, or that there are problems with displaying them. The problem is that the layout is oriented towards books in portrait format, with a page being twice the size of a typical tablet display. It bothers me when usability could be better, that's why I made this thread.
I'll make a new post.
Done: here
And what Aspect Ratio do you want them to support? 3:2, 4:3, 16:9? Which Tablet displays sizes are your thinking of 7-inch, 9.7-inch, 10.1-inch?
What you're asking Paizo to do, or any eBook writer who isn't using the rather basic ePub formatting, is totally rebuild the layout. There aren't any good tools that would automate this process well.
Wait (confused), do you want them to chop everything up into Landscape format instead? I've been using it in Portrait mode with GoodReader page cropping to cut out all the unneeded margin space. This sounds more like a request that needs to be sent along to the GoodReader folks to have a pre-zoomed (fit to width) mode for Landscape reading mode with "page turns" at the bottom of the page instead of the left and right.
Reading materials formated for traditional printing in Portrait mode is half the attraction of the iPad.
If you don't mind a bit of reading this is a good place to start on the difficulty of making an appropriately sized PDF for eBooks.
What you want is what's called a Tagged PDF, very simlar to the way HTML uses <tags> to define elements. Page 26 is the main one. Paizo spends a great amount of effort on PDF layout design for printing. This means we are dealing with, as I saw reading another site "dehydrated" paper.
Likely the best option would be to go though and fully Tag the PDF, that tagging can be used by electronic devices to reflow. However that's a lot of work still and in my experience the tools just are conducive to it.