I just realized that with the exception of two books out of print and gaming books, I have not bought a paper book in over two years.
I'm not really fond of PDF's, they get clunky on my tablet, but ebooks in either epub or mobi work very well for me.
The point of this is that I wish Paizo would publish in a ebook format other than PDF and also to find out what formats other pathfinders prefer.
So how do y'all read?
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epub and mobi really don't lend themselves to being used for well for gaming books. I find on my tablet the reader is what makes the difference with PDFs. The reader I use right now reads Paizo PDFs almost as fast as I can flip pages, and if I'm reading the pages there's never a problem with the next one loading.
I think there needs to be a standard selected. I wish the Kindle supported ePub, but since Amazon owns MobiPocket I don't think that'll ever happen.
Except for very few select books I've gone digital and couldn't (almost) be happier.
epub and mobi really don't lend themselves to being used for well for gaming books. I find on my tablet the reader is what makes the difference with PDFs. The reader I use right now reads Paizo PDFs almost as fast as I can flip pages, and if I'm reading the pages there's never a problem with the next one loading.
I think there needs to be a standard selected. I wish the Kindle supported ePub, but since Amazon owns MobiPocket I don't think that'll ever happen.
Except for very few select books I've gone digital and couldn't (almost) be happier.
What reader are you using for PDF's?
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Paper books, all the way.
It's not that I don't understand the appeal of Ebooks. It's not that I don't appreciate the convenience of them. It's more basic than that.
Call me old school, but I just prefer paper books over digital ones. PDFs are clunky. They can be difficult to navigate, and, on certain devices, don't even work right. Ebooks just don't feel right to me. Nothing will ever eclipse the feel of a good, solid, paper book in my hands. Does that make me old fashioned? Maybe. Does that make me wrong? Of course not. Does that mean I think less of people who use digital books? Absolutely not. To each their own, and digital books definitely have their uses. Do I intend on changing any time soon? Not one little bit. I have never purchased an Ebook or PDF and I doubt I ever will. Only if paper books completely die out within my lifetime (not likely) will I make the switch. I don't even care if digital books are cheaper (which they sometimes are), I will pay the extra money for the paper ones. Again, this is just personal preference. Digital is not wrong. It's just that, to me, paper feels better. Add to that the fact that I can find specific pages and entries in a paper book fairly quickly. I can find stuff in a print book just as fast, and in some cases faster, than somebody using an ebook. Certainly faster than someone using a PDF. Maybe that's why I prefer them. Maybe I'm just a victim of classical thinking. Maybe it comes from having been gaming for 30 years now. I dunno. I guess I just like 'em.
You can have your ebooks. I'll stick with REAL books.
Logically, e-books are easier to transport. You'll always have them to re-download later if they're cluttering up the place, they DON'T clutter up the place (by taking up physical space) and you won't lose them in the move or when traveling around.
On the other hand, THAT PAPER AND INK SMELL YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
Chief Technical Officer
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The point of this is that I wish Paizo would publish in a ebook format other than PDF...
At the moment, there are really only a couple of digital book formats that have any kind of major market acceptance, and that's PDF and ePub (mobi is really just a specialized flavor of ePub).
The ePub format is ideal for electronic books that are mostly text, but it currently lacks really good support for precise layout of images and special textual formatting. (Version 3.0 of the ePub spec has improved that, but it's still not where we need it to be.)
Because of this, only the Pathfinder Tales line is available in ePub form at this time; for now, the best way to view our other Pathfinder products electronically is in PDF form.
I have both the print and PDF option for most of my gaming stuff and they really fill two separate niches for me. At home I prefer the print stuff. I often have 3 or 4 books open at once when GMing or writing. It is easy to move back and forth quickly to whatever rules/info I need. Sometimes one of these could be an iPad or computer.
However, nothing beats having access to my whole gaming library at once on one device for when I am out of my house. Right now I am on vacation but thanks to PDFs and my ipad and Dropbox I have access to everything I own. It is a little more cumbersome in terms of switching back and forth and finding things but not much more and i can literally run/write/play in a game anywhere with a handful of dice and my iPad.
I loathe PDF. It may work as a backup if you can't bring the real book with you for some reason, but it's no substitute for the real deal.
However, for other books I've switched entirely to e-books. It's just so much more comfortable to read on a good e-ink display. The only disadvantage to the e-book format, imho, is that it's much more difficult to check out what other people are reading.
I'm nosy. I wants to know!