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I was really disappointed to see that the PDF offers little navigation help. No hyperlinks on TOC/index entries, cross-references, or the chapter tabs that got so much praise in reviews I've read. Having hit a couple cases where I have to follow chains of cross-references, I think this is a real problem with the PDF. At least it has a PDF table of contents.
I sure hope they put out an update that adds these in.
I doubt that will happen. Putting in the hyperlinks was a time consuming (and therefore expensive) process that wasn't worth the effort.
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Well then I'd say they used the wrong tools to create the book, but then that's very much water under the bridge....I doubt that will happen. Putting in the hyperlinks was a time consuming (and therefore expensive) process that wasn't worth the effort.I was really disappointed to see that the PDF offers little navigation help. No hyperlinks on TOC/index entries, cross-references, or the chapter tabs that got so much praise in reviews I've read. Having hit a couple cases where I have to follow chains of cross-references, I think this is a real problem with the PDF. At least it has a PDF table of contents.
I sure hope they put out an update that adds these in.
No it's a time and money thing, not a tool thing. You have to pay someone to put all those links and then check and make sure they work.
And then recheck and redo any time you update the book.
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You have to pay someone to put all those links and then check and make sure they work.
And then recheck and redo any time you update the book.
You do realize they didn't have an actual person manually adding them all in, and then keeping them up to date?
Right?
... yes you would need a real person to put them in and check and make sure they're working.
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This is why I love the Monte Cook Games pdfs, so well designed. Simple system but the books are fillllleeed with hyper links, border references and more.
WHomever does the layout for their books deserves a raise imo :P
I will probably make a pass through the CRB pdf after the first revision gets released. Despite what people are saying above it really isn't that time intensive or difficult.
Currently I am getting by with alphabeticalised index bookmarks and a macro to take me to the page select field.
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I doubt that will happen. Putting in the hyperlinks was a time consuming (and therefore expensive) process that wasn't worth the effort.I was really disappointed to see that the PDF offers little navigation help. No hyperlinks on TOC/index entries, cross-references, or the chapter tabs that got so much praise in reviews I've read. Having hit a couple cases where I have to follow chains of cross-references, I think this is a real problem with the PDF. At least it has a PDF table of contents.
I sure hope they put out an update that adds these in.
There were fan-edited versions of the Playtest PDF for every single update that came out, with everything hyperlinked *and* with update notes included (text would be crossed out and would show you the updated rules when you clicked on it, or would otherwise have wholesale new things listed off to the side in the margins). Fans did it quickly, often within a day or two of an update coming out. What you're saying is nonsense. In fact, you could just write a small amount of regex to capture all the possible instances of page numbers and have a handy list to highlight and turn into a hyperlink, on the assumption you don't have a way to further automate this process by then just having the hyperlink take you to the appropriate page number.
I'm sure there'll at least be fan-edited versions floating around eventually, which is just more reason for Paizo to take that extra effort to make their official PDF's a bit easier on folk to use. Same for errata, doing what fans did for the Playtest would make using the PDF far less frustrating for those who prefer that to referring to the 2e.aonprd.com website.
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Fans did it quickly, often within a day or two of an update coming out.1) How quickly did it take them?
2) The final version not only has more in it, it's also got more going on in it.
3) They also did it for free.
1) As I said, often a couple days. Given page numbers are trivial to find, we might be able to say maybe a week of one person's time. Let's say that person is paid super well, so like $50 an hour for a 40 hour workweek. $2,000 to improve all PDF's, retroactively. You can double, triple, quadruple the cost and given the sheer scale that Paizo's operating at it's still not exactly prohibitively expensive.
2) The book is a couple times bigger. It's not exactly an order of magnitude more complex, and again this would likely be a largely automated process with a human looking over the results to double check. This is NOT editing, it doesn't actually move anything around that would require the input of anyone but a single person going over this.
3) Exactly. It was very cool of them to do, but it was hardly something they had to quit their day jobs over. It took effort, and work deserves pay, but it'd be utterly dwarfed by all the other money they sank into making this edition.
Other PDF's have done this, it's really not some herculean effort. It's a perfectly reasonable request.
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Fans did it quickly, often within a day or two of an update coming out.1) How quickly did it take them?
2) The final version not only has more in it, it's also got more going on in it.
3) They also did it for free.
1) As I said, often a couple days. Given page numbers are trivial to find, we might be able to say maybe a week of one person's time. Let's say that person is paid super well, so like $50 an hour for a 40 hour workweek. $2,000 to improve all PDF's, retroactively. You can double, triple, quadruple the cost and given the sheer scale that Paizo's operating at it's still not exactly prohibitively expensive.
2) The book is a couple times bigger. It's not exactly an order of magnitude more complex, and again this would likely be a largely automated process with a human looking over the results to double check. This is NOT editing, it doesn't actually move anything around that would require the input of anyone but a single person going over this.
3) Exactly. It was very cool of them to do, but it was hardly something they had to quit their day jobs over. It took effort, and work deserves pay, but it'd be utterly dwarfed by all the other money they sank into making this edition.
Other PDF's have done this, it's really not some herculean effort. It's a perfectly reasonable request.
1) So a week on top of all the other work they had to do, that would be pretty obscene. Bringing in an outside Editor to work on it could work, but it's a matter of time. Keeping it at 40 hours a week it'll probably take more than 1.
2) Going from the playtest to the final i'd definitely say it's a bit more complicated with all the moving parts. And it is indeed editing, regardless of reviewing a scrip or a person, making sure everything works is additional time.
3) Again, it's a matter of time as well as money. "These other people did this as a passion project" does not make the project easy nor quick nor cheap.
4) Actually, and something I didn't think of, is how much bigger it would make the PDF with full hyperlinks, could the file handle it?
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4) Actually, and something I didn't think of, is how much bigger it would make the PDF with full hyperlinks, could the file handle it?
... I think you may be exaggerating the expenses and obstacles here.
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I doubt that will happen. Putting in the hyperlinks was a time consuming (and therefore expensive) process that wasn't worth the effort.I was really disappointed to see that the PDF offers little navigation help. No hyperlinks on TOC/index entries, cross-references, or the chapter tabs that got so much praise in reviews I've read. Having hit a couple cases where I have to follow chains of cross-references, I think this is a real problem with the PDF. At least it has a PDF table of contents.
I sure hope they put out an update that adds these in.
They're selling the PDF as a commercial product. What is more, their design philosophy behind this edition wanted very much to rely on traits a.k.a. keywords, which by their nature require extensive cross-referencing.
While I very much appreciate the Archive of Nethys, its layout leaves me wanting and it is not organized the same way as the CRB and so it's a jump trying to figure out how to information there.
I can understand if the Paizo folks were busy with preparing the content and all the products they had for Gen Con. But really, they should eventually make the PDF hyperlinked, and for the new version to be freely available who purchased it already. It's a reasonable expectation for the core rules PDF for years to cometo be hyperlinked.
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Evil Hat does linking with all/almost-all of their PDFs. Keywords are hyperlinked, as are pages. I'm not a layout designer but I imagine that InDesign has markup options for mapping one part of the document to another.
That said, it is probably expensive and time consuming to do it well. The question is whether or not the added benefit justifies the cost. Personally, PDFs and online resources are almost exclusively how I consume RPG stuff, so it would be a huge benefit to me. I also think it makes for a more polished product.
A good point Rysky made above, though, is the added cost for when they do reprints. Probably not a huge amount of extra overhead but certainly non-zero.
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I doubt that will happen. Putting in the hyperlinks was a time consuming (and therefore expensive) process that wasn't worth the effort.I was really disappointed to see that the PDF offers little navigation help. No hyperlinks on TOC/index entries, cross-references, or the chapter tabs that got so much praise in reviews I've read. Having hit a couple cases where I have to follow chains of cross-references, I think this is a real problem with the PDF. At least it has a PDF table of contents.
I sure hope they put out an update that adds these in.
Could not agree more!!
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Any update on this?
What kind of an update are you imagining?
The PDF doesn't have hyperlinks. That's (almost definitely) not accidental. Odds are very high that will not change because it's almost guaranteed it isn't an oversight on Paizo's part, but a consequence of their output process and available labour.
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It’s still something that can be addressed and fixed. Unlike printing mistakes, updating the PDF with hyperlinks does not require a recall and reissuing of books. They can update the file online like they would after any reprinting changes and we can update our files.
As mentioned above, if fans can do it for free and quickly during the playtest then a professional company can hire someone to do it. It isn’t game design, they don’t need Jason, Mark and Logan to take time from their next project to work on this.
Hyperlinks would be a huge improvement to the PDFs, I think it’s okay that people keep asking for them until Paizo can give a response.
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I don't believe so, but the 4) is a an actual question on my part since I don't know.
The extra size would be a complete nonfactor. They could hyperlink every word in the document to something else and it'd have essentially no impact on the size of the file, relative to its current size. Hyperlinks are extraordinarily cheap compared to images.
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Another option is pf2.d20pfsrd.com. I'm working constantly towards improving usability and real-world functionality, and always appreciate suggestions or ideas on how to make it easier to use. You can reach me anytime at jreyst@gmail.com.
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Another option is pf2.d20pfsrd.com. I'm working constantly towards improving usability and real-world functionality, and always appreciate suggestions or ideas on how to make it easier to use. You can reach me anytime at jreyst@gmail.com.
Suggestion: Don't kill it with pop ups and advertisements. Our group went from regularly using d20pfsrd.com to avoiding it like the plague. It looked like an old geocities website and was about just as usable.
If you need the advertisements to pay for the website/reimburse you for the time spent on it (which is completely fair) perhaps offer an ad and pop up free option as a subscription.
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We are actively working on a subscription model and it *should* be available VERY soon (as in, days or weeks?). However, I don't *think* we're serving any major popups unless you consider the text-based informational things I send now and then (sometimes sales, sometimes info about other SRDs coming live etc.)
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That's great to hear.
However, I don't *think* we're serving any major popups unless you consider the text-based informational things I send now and then (sometimes sales, sometimes info about other SRDs coming live etc.)
Admittedly it has been a while since I regularly used d20pfsrd.com (at least 12 months if not longer) but there was a time with the PF1e site where I got a pop up every single time I went to it. It might have gotten better since then though.
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We are actively working on a subscription model and it *should* be available VERY soon (as in, days or weeks?). However, I don't *think* we're serving any major popups unless you consider the text-based informational things I send now and then (sometimes sales, sometimes info about other SRDs coming live etc.)
Every time I open the page after restart I get one pop-up ad that asks if I'm interested in some game product or not and a cookie pop-up. I've got HEAVY pop-up protection running so I couldn't tell you if anything else is going on.
Any update on this?What kind of an update are you imagining?
The PDF doesn't have hyperlinks. That's (almost definitely) not accidental. Odds are very high that will not change because it's almost guaranteed it isn't an oversight on Paizo's part, but a consequence of their output process and available labour.
I don't pay a huge amount of attention to this stuff, since it doesn't affect me. However, I seem to remember this being an often-requested feature in PF1's life and the main reason it was a pretty definite no was that it conflicted in some way with Paizo's security/anti-piracy measures.
I may well be remembering something else, so don't put a lot of faith in that comment, but that's my recollection of one of the big reasons given that meant it was unlikely to happen.
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That would make sense, except the PF1e CRB had hyperlinks all the way through it. So that's either wrong, or the PF1e CRB was built with voodoo magic.
That would make sense, except the PF1e CRB had hyperlinks all the way through it. So that's either wrong, or the PF1e CRB was built with voodoo magic.
Sounds like I misremembered then. (I don't use PDFs).
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I'm not willing to discount eldritch magics myself.
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That would make sense, except the PF1e CRB had hyperlinks all the way through it. So that's either wrong, or the PF1e CRB was built with voodoo magic.
Ha, ha!
I must have been spoiled with the annotated playtest pdf and was sorely disappointed that there weren't in text link. Right now spells are the biggest chore so sometimes I utilize the physical with the pdf.
Isn't spells the easiest one to solve with CTRL+F?
Can't be that many "Fireball" words in the book, or "Magic Missile"?
Ehhh... isn't that obvious?Any update on this?What kind of an update are you imagining?
Since you put it that way, yes. You're imagining Paizo responding with "derp, duh, uh, we didn't think of that... silly us. We'll get right on it."
Not impossible but - as I said - not likely. I tend to have enough faith in Paizo that I expect things are the way they are because of good reasons, not because of mistakes.
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I must have been spoiled with the annotated playtest pdf and was sorely disappointed that there weren't in text link. Right now spells are the biggest chore so sometimes I utilize the physical with the pdf.Isn't spells the easiest one to solve with CTRL+F?
Can't be that many "Fireball" words in the book, or "Magic Missile"?
Fireball is in the PDF over 40 times. The term Magic Missile is used roughly 10 times before you get to it’s description, and is likely in the book a few more dozen times after that.
That still involves opening the search function and typing in the words verses clicking once. This becomes an even bigger handle on mobiles and tablets.
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It’s really frustrating when pirating tv shows or movies gets you better quality then what you get from movies you have legally bought.
Fortunately that hasn’t been my experience with Paizo’s PDFs :)
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... yes you would need a real person to put them in and check and make sure they're working.You have to pay someone to put all those links and then check and make sure they work.
And then recheck and redo any time you update the book.
You do realize they didn't have an actual person manually adding them all in, and then keeping them up to date?
Right?
you make a link to a chapter or mini chapter log, you don't like have manual triggers to page numbers... they work on the same basic at the TOC except the links bring you to that specific one that's under like 4 sub categories... so they don't need editing unless something changed the chapters, etc.
The PDFs already have nested bookmarks. That's probably not as useful on a phone or tablet, but it's better than nothing.
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Where is that "clicking once" happening, though? Didn't you have to get a particular part of the PDF before making that happen, much like you can click on the "spell descriptions" bookmark before doing the ctrl+F for whichever spell and typically find it as the first result?
Note: I'm not saying it's perfect as-is or that hyper-links aren't useful... just that the "difficulty" of navigating a PDF without hyper-links is being exaggerated.
Yes sorry, I was too interested in seeing how many times those spells actually turned up to consider the context of how the book was being used here. I’m the case of “I need to open the PDF and look up what Fireball does” then you would need either use the bookmarks or use Ctrl-F to find the first instance of Fireball and click on it to jump to the entry. It would still help that you don’t need to next>next>next until you find what you are looking for.
In case of spells or feats I like to put the page number on the character sheet so it’s a quick look up either way.
Hyperlinks are more for when you are already in the PDF and it refers to another rule in another section you can quickly jump to that point. The final CRB is a lot better laid out then the playtest but it purposely uses things like Traits, Basic Saves, Basic Spellcasting Benefits & Proficiency where you explain a rule once and don’t need repeat it when mentioned again. Having each time those terms pop up get hyperlinked to the description makes referencing rules much easier.
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Putting so much focus on trait keywords for everything and then NOT being able to click on the trait is a huge blunder. Hyperlinks in pdfs have existed for decades, there's no reason not to add them, especially if you pay >10$ for a file which can be copied indefinitely.
The PDFs already have nested bookmarks. That's probably not as useful on a phone or tablet, but it's better than nothing.
I would imagine us tablet junkies are the main market for the PDFs though.