PDFs

[Lord Grave]

> If anyone is, for whatever reason, converting the BR3E PDFs
> into a format that is smaller and easier to load, read, and
> print such as .doc, .rtf, or even .txt, I`d appreciate it if
> you could toss a copy my way. Even just a couple of chapters
> would give me something to read.
>

Are you joking or what? PDF is much easier to do all the you want to do
to it than DOC, RTF and TXT. Oh my, TXT, that is hell.

Maybe you don`t have Acrobat Reader? It is free utility and can be
downloaded somewhere...just do a search on www.google.com

Anyway, if you really want simpler text, you can use Acrobat Reader`s
Text Select Tool to copy all the text and paste it into DOC file. It`s
not a big deal, although it may take windows some effort to handle that
much text :-)

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[Gannd]

www.adobe.com Has it free. Having it be a .rtf and .txt would be a huge
pain in the ass. Setting it up at a .html file might be pretty cool.


Ken Johnson
IGN Vault Network
Associate Editor, IGN Vault Network


-----Original Message-----
From: Birthright Roleplaying Game Discussion
[mailto:BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM] On Behalf Of Milos Rasic
Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2003 6:13 PM
To: BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
Subject: PDFs

> If anyone is, for whatever reason, converting the BR3E PDFs
> into a format that is smaller and easier to load, read, and
> print such as .doc, .rtf, or even .txt, I`d appreciate it if
> you could toss a copy my way. Even just a couple of chapters
> would give me something to read.
>

Are you joking or what? PDF is much easier to do all the you want to do
to it than DOC, RTF and TXT. Oh my, TXT, that is hell.

Maybe you don`t have Acrobat Reader? It is free utility and can be
downloaded somewhere...just do a search on www.google.com

Anyway, if you really want simpler text, you can use Acrobat Reader`s
Text Select Tool to copy all the text and paste it into DOC file. It`s
not a big deal, although it may take windows some effort to handle that
much text :-)

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[irdeggman]

There is also a size difference when using say word for the document. On the development side it was around 3 to 4 times larger in word than pdf.

[Raesene Andu]

The BRCS did exist as a .doc file, but not the final version as it was all combined into a .pdf file. This was done because it is a format that can be read on the majority of system (after downloading acrobat reader) and provided a good formatted version for printing.

There was never a text/rtf/html version of any of the material and so it would need to be created, which would take some time. Perhaps if there were enough requests for one, this could be done, although I should point out that the text version would still be approximately 1 meg in size.

[doom]

On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 07:20:20PM -0600, Ken Johnson wrote:
> www.adobe.com Has it free. Having it be a .rtf and .txt would be a huge
> pain in the ass. Setting it up at a .html file might be pretty cool.

I expect that after:
A) Birthright-L gets all the noted problems worked out of the draft, and
B) Arjan finishes his layout (btw, if you didn`t check out the links
that he posted, do so. Awesome stuff.)

That the final version will make its way to HTML-hood on the website
(and finally replace the empty "3rd edition" links that we`ve had for
several years).

- Doom

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[ryancaveney]

On Fri, 7 Feb 2003, Milos Rasic wrote:

> Are you joking or what? PDF is much easier to do all the you want to
> do to it than DOC, RTF and TXT. Oh my, TXT, that is hell.

On the contrary, I find TXT far easier to handle than anything else.

Any document that I can`t pipe to a command line program on STDIN, or edit
easily without having to pay for proprietary software, is a bad document.

DOC and RTF are terrible, I agree, but nothing at all can compare
favorably to the glories of good old ASCII. This is not sarcasm, it is
my completely truthful opinion.

> not a big deal, although it may take windows some effort to handle
> that much text :-)

Which is why I use UNIX. =)


Ryan Caveney

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[Birthright-L]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@CYBERCOM.NET>
To: <BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM>
Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2003 8:20 PM
Subject: Re: [BIRTHRIGHT] PDFs


> On Fri, 7 Feb 2003, Milos Rasic wrote:
>
> > Are you joking or what? PDF is much easier to do all the you want to
> > do to it than DOC, RTF and TXT. Oh my, TXT, that is hell.
>
> On the contrary, I find TXT far easier to handle than anything else.
>
> Any document that I can`t pipe to a command line program on STDIN, or edit
> easily without having to pay for proprietary software, is a bad document.
>
> DOC and RTF are terrible, I agree, but nothing at all can compare
> favorably to the glories of good old ASCII. This is not sarcasm, it is
> my completely truthful opinion.
>

Ick! plaint text is about as easy to read on the computer or on a white page
as reading a pocket unabridged dictionary (and I have good eyes!) its just
horrendous to me. I`d prefer to go with the standard for online game
releases that is portable from computer to some PDA`s to whatever...
that is PDF.

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[ryancaveney]

On Fri, 7 Feb 2003, Raesene Andu wrote:

> There was never a text/rtf/html version of any of the material and so
> it would need to be created, which would take some time.

OK, so I`ve just done it. It looks pretty rough (in some places the lines
are 140 characters long, in others just 40), but it`ll do for a first
pass, especially since it undid those terribly confusing (to a line-based
text parser: grep is better than almost any index) columns.

> Perhaps if there were enough requests for one, this could be done,

I`m happy to send this one to anyone who wants it.

> although I should point out that the text version would still be
> approximately 1 meg in size.

The one in front of me now is in fact 1.012 MB. =)
It gzip`s down to 346 kb.


Ryan Caveney

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[Lord Grave]

> irdeggman wrote:
> There is also a size difference when using say word for the
> document. On the development side it was around 3 to 4 times
> larger in word than pdf.


This is because PDF is compressed. Compressing the DOC, RTF or TXT file
will have much better effects than compressing PDF. Here`s an example:

Player Handbook PDF
real size: 13.1Mb
zipped: 12.6Mb

Player Handbook DOC:
real size: 2.51Mb
zipped: 703kb

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[Lord Grave]

> >
> > DOC and RTF are terrible, I agree, but nothing at all can compare
> > favorably to the glories of good old ASCII. This is not
> sarcasm, it
> > is my completely truthful opinion.
> >

One thing I like with PDF, if we forget the graphics and think only
about info and ease of use, is indexing and jumping to pages. A small
document is one thing, and even ASCII is ok, but how would you find your
way through BRCS in TXT format? Btw, will the final version of BRCS be
indexed?

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[doom]

On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 11:17:34PM +0100, Milos Rasic wrote:
> One thing I like with PDF, if we forget the graphics and think only
> about info and ease of use, is indexing and jumping to pages. A small
> document is one thing, and even ASCII is ok, but how would you find your
> way through BRCS in TXT format? Btw, will the final version of BRCS be
> indexed?

Yes. In fact, the current version is... but the Index is just as much
"in draft" as everything else. Things will have to be added to it as
need is noted.

- Doom

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[ryancaveney]

On Fri, 7 Feb 2003, Milos Rasic wrote:

> A small document is one thing, and even ASCII is ok, but how would you
> find your way through BRCS in TXT format?

My text file viewer can do extended regular expression searches. =)
I`d much rather have a flat text file and grep/less/emacs/perl than
any formal indexing scheme that comes at the price of less easy input
to powerful search algorithms.

> Btw, will the final version of BRCS be indexed?

This one is, though no index is ever as complete as I would like.
I would expect the final version to be no less indexed than this one is.


Ryan Caveney

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[ryancaveney]

On Thu, 6 Feb 2003, Sidhain wrote:

> Ick! plaint text is about as easy to read on the computer or on a white
> page as reading a pocket unabridged dictionary (and I have good eyes!)

I prefer to read gray text on a black page (fewer photons = less
eyestrain), so the fact that I can`t as a reader change the colors in a
pdf is actually rather irritating. I also find it much easier to play
with font size in txt than pdf since it all stays within the same window
and wraps itself nicely, instead of having to constantly move the viewing
screen around a magnified pdf.

> I`d prefer to go with the standard for online game releases that is
> portable from computer to some PDA`s to whatever... that is PDF.

No, the only existing approximation to a completely portable format is
plain ASCII text. =)


Ryan Caveney

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[Birthright-L]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@CYBERCOM.NET>
To: <BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM>
Sent: Saturday, February 08, 2003 10:55 AM
Subject: Re: [BIRTHRIGHT] PDFs


> On Thu, 6 Feb 2003, Sidhain wrote:
>
> > Ick! plaint text is about as easy to read on the computer or on a white
> > page as reading a pocket unabridged dictionary (and I have good eyes!)
>
> I prefer to read gray text on a black page (fewer photons = less
> eyestrain), so the fact that I can`t as a reader change the colors in a
> pdf is actually rather irritating. I also find it much easier to play
> with font size in txt than pdf since it all stays within the same window
> and wraps itself nicely, instead of having to constantly move the viewing
> screen around a magnified pdf.
>
> > I`d prefer to go with the standard for online game releases that is
> > portable from computer to some PDA`s to whatever... that is PDF.
>
> No, the only existing approximation to a completely portable format is
> plain ASCII text. =)
>


Yes but it isn`t very /readable/ it doesn`t format the same across all
platforms.

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[DanMcSorley]

On Sat, 8 Feb 2003, Sidhain wrote:
> > > I`d prefer to go with the standard for online game releases that is
> > > portable from computer to some PDA`s to whatever... that is PDF.
> >
> > No, the only existing approximation to a completely portable format is
> > plain ASCII text. =)
>
> Yes but it isn`t very /readable/ it doesn`t format the same across all
> platforms.

The format is done by the viewing program. Plain text includes no
formatting info at all. The readability then isn`t dictated by the
content, but by the preferences of the reader. If by `it isn`t very
readable`, you mean it isn`t very readable in Notepad, then read it in
something else.
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

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[ryancaveney]

On Sat, 8 Feb 2003, Sidhain wrote:

> Yes but it isn`t very /readable/ it doesn`t format the same across all
> platforms.

Ah, but I *like* that. The *reader* gets to format it however they wish.


Ryan Caveney

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[Birthright-L]

----- Original Message -----
From: "daniel mcsorley" <mcsorley@CIS.OHIO-STATE.EDU>
To: <BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM>
Sent: Saturday, February 08, 2003 6:09 PM
Subject: Re: [BIRTHRIGHT] PDFs


> On Sat, 8 Feb 2003, Sidhain wrote:
> > > > I`d prefer to go with the standard for online game releases that is
> > > > portable from computer to some PDA`s to whatever... that is PDF.
> > >
> > > No, the only existing approximation to a completely portable format is
> > > plain ASCII text. =)
> >
> > Yes but it isn`t very /readable/ it doesn`t format the same across all
> > platforms.
>
> The format is done by the viewing program. Plain text includes no
> formatting info at all. The readability then isn`t dictated by the
> content, but by the preferences of the reader. If by `it isn`t very
> readable`, you mean it isn`t very readable in Notepad, then read it in
> something else.
> --
I`ve tried several different programs and the results are the same--too long
lines not wrapped from "Ascii".

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[Birthright-L]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@CYBERCOM.NET>
To: <BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM>
Sent: Saturday, February 08, 2003 6:34 PM
Subject: Re: [BIRTHRIGHT] PDFs


> On Sat, 8 Feb 2003, Sidhain wrote:
>
> > Yes but it isn`t very /readable/ it doesn`t format the same across all
> > platforms.
>
> Ah, but I *like* that. The *reader* gets to format it however they wish.
>
>
. I`m too busy to screw around with someone else`s material to make it
readable, except in /extreme cases/ including writing my own and formatting
my own material. When you do it regularly for oneself you just could care
less about getting a product that you have to do that way--for many reasons.
I download free rpg`s from time to time to check them out, the reason many
of those are seen as amateur is often they are plain text, with no layout to
speak off, no formatting, and so on. That isn`t the only reason but its the
top of a long list.

If I got it free I can`t complain too much but I still haven`t read my copy
of Bonewail (for Providence RPG) for that very reason, its plain text, and I
haven`t the time to make my deadlines to mess with making it readable.

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