perhaps a dumb q but it is bugging me

[Mark Morgan]

why are the online seeler from drive through RPG to FFe and travler and non traveler stuff being present as PDF's

personaly I am not found of the format was every update seems to change how the doc end up looking and how I can get at them

what advantage do they have either for me (the end user) or the publisher like say Mark

after if I were inclinced I could esily transmite the pdf I have of traveler or otheer stuff aroudn the net and with care ...

I am curious and to mods not exactly a traveler deoendat topic but relavant to us all

 

[far-trader]

I'm guessing the same reason most people use Windows, VCRs are VHS, it's BluRay instead of HDDVD, and so on. They (Adobe PDF) won the version war. They are the default. Not necessarily because of superiority of product but just because in the end they convinced enough people that their's was the way to go.

And I hope your 4th line is in no way advocating, suggesting, or even hinting your or anyone's participation in piracy of copyright materials.

 

[Altoman5]

When it comes to saving documents in a certain format, I prefer PDFs, as long as the pages scanned or created are in good quality. However, there's nothing more cool than having a hardcover that you can read through and hang in on a bookshelf. Although, I may be negatively contributing to the environment, however, it's worth having.

So everyone, "Buy a book...kill a tree!"

 

[Peter Schutze]

>after if I were inclinced I could esily transmite the pdf I have of traveler or otheer stuff aroudn the net and with care ...

then its a good thing that the purchaser and transaction reference are embedded in the filestats and on most of the items I've bought it also shows on a couple of pages

>what advantage do they have either for me (the end user) or the publisher like say Mark

for you:
Compare the size of a USB key with your traveller game collection.
decent publishers make corrected PDFs available to be downloaded by all electronic purchasers
try buying stuff from the early 80's eg Judges Guild in your local store (if there is still one)

for the publisher: there is a huge upfront cost in physical production. the warehousing& distribution cost is not to be sneezed at either unless you live in nowhereville and have a spare barn
Most of these costs gets incurred for each production run with ever decreasing sales potential/ turnover speed

 

[saundby]

Although, I may be negatively contributing to the environment, however, it's worth having.

So everyone, "Buy a book...kill a tree!"

Aren't physical books trapping carbon to keep it from being released into the atmosphere? Especially books with...black covers?

Want a tree? I've got several hundred on my property.* I'll declare one of them your ecological guilt relief tree if you like.

*Trees grow as weeds here. It's all I can do to keep the tree count down to a few hundred.

 

[Mark Morgan]

.

And I hope your 4th line is in no way advocating, suggesting, or even hinting your or anyone's participation in piracy of copyright materials.

no it refers to an argument i hear that the pdf is somehwo how more secure than other format
the fact I could send or you could etc seem to bely such a statement

 

[Mark Morgan]

the question is why has everyone settle of PDF far trader come the closest to dealing with tat

personaly I just hate pdf since adobe keeps making me update stuff and never looks that same after I update I loath the format indeed glad I have an ld laptop with an old version of adobe that read most of the traveler pdfs on the updates I get forced onme by folks where I work leave me some week spending more time on adobe than working (thankfully I bill that out byt the hour in my current contract)

as to embeding something well while discussing how that could beignred is too much it ain't hard to dump stuff out on the net if you want to ( i know I ahve several cyber stalkers that the cops can't trace down) a desmating and geting paid securely would a little harder but still I could do that an I am hardly an expert ( meaning I feel if I could d almost ayone could)

 

[far-trader]

no it refers to an argument i hear that the pdf is somehwo how more secure than other format
the fact I could send or you could etc seem to bely such a statement

Good to hear

The security talk for PDF's I think centers more around the ability to make the document secure from (easy at least) tampering or casual editing, if such is chosen in preparing it. The producer gets to set the levels of access to the document more so than in other formats I think. I don't think they're any more secure in the sense of not being able to easily transfer than any other electronic medium.

I think it (once upon a time anyway) also had to do with the usage of the document. PDFs were superior for printing copies from and that was where they made their big market score.

 

[aramis]

PDF's, generally, are PostScript with a wrapper. The PS content can be encrypted, and the wrapper can be flagged to disallow a variety of stuff. Even some go so far as to have a password to even view the file. Plus, PDF allows (in addition to PS) other graphical formats.

 

[aramis]

what advantage do they have either for me (the end user) or the publisher like say Mark

Advantages to user:

• pagination is the same no matter the output device
• content can include many fonts that the end user might not have installed
  mixed text and graphics
• readers available for all current mainstream OS's (Mac, Windows, Linux, Unix, Palm, WinCE) and several legacy ones, as well (Be, NeXtStep)
• Format can include scripting, allowing smart forms and/or spreadsheets.

Advantages to publisher:

• security features including RSA encrypted content
• Q&A easier due to identical pagination
• Dirty PostScript tricks get preserved and output even to non-PS printers
• Most modern print bureaus expect a HQ PDF, so it's just change a couple settings to generate the LQ PDF for sale. (mind you, LQ is still typically at least 150DPI... HQ may be as high as 1200DPI)
• Multiple page sizes may be included in document

 

[robject]

I used to intensely dislike PDFs. They're bigger and bulkier than text files, and the reader took significant resources to boot up ( = slow ). Nowadays hardware seems to have caught up, so I now prefer PDF to (for example) Word or plaintext.

On the other hand, it seems that in many cases RTF produces nice results with relatively small file sizes.

And, of course, TeX would win in my book hands-down if it were friendlier to use.

 

[aramis]

RTF has the pagination issue; the pagination doesn't remain the same from one platform to another with the same program, let alone from one program to another. So does word, so especially does plaintext.

TeX is just plain obnoxious... most of the stuff in TeX promptly gets converted to PDF these days...

 

[DonM]

why are the online seeler from drive through RPG to FFe and travler and non traveler stuff being present as PDF's

personaly I am not found of the format was every update seems to change how the doc end up looking and how I can get at them

After reading the original question, and the responses, my question back to Mark is: do you have some other format which you would prefer?

 

[Mark Morgan]

After reading the original question, and the responses, my question back to Mark is: do you have some other format which you would prefer?

when dealing with a scan of older materail I erfer RTF never seen much of a paging problem but then I tend to encode hard page breaks most of the time smaler less time to DL if dealing with a disk/mail envioment Id like the simplew st and bluckiest BMP and just compress them myself with sizing I fix

with the versions and pgrades of PDF dispite the 3 pcs I use have very different version and thus on some machine (like the one I am using) now I find the ppdf all but un scannable (i can't easily flip though the pages looking for something forcing me to look 2 pages at time right now while on my oldest laworking loptop I can just scroll down scaning the text with my eyes till I find what I want

with some other formats it would esier to locate or break out pices or places I would want to get too over and over again

sorry folsk I am that who lives ind red of the email from IT saying new upagreds on the way