Landscape Format PDFs

[Strangelove]

I just bought the entire Mongoose Traveller selection from Drive Thu RPG, almost broke $200 which is a new record for me, and while browsing some of the books I wondered what sort of trouble it would be to offer the PDFs for landscape viewing instead of their current portrait.

Books you hold in your hands obviously work better in a portrait format but as all modern LCD screens are 16x9 that vertical 8.5x11 format causes a pain depending on the screen size. You either have to zoom in the page and scroll up and down a lot or zoom it out to see a whole page with tiny text.

Now, I mainly read PDF on my iMac which is one of the Aluminum 24" models so I can put Adobe Reader full screen and get two pages at full scale with no problems thanks to the 1920x1200 resolution. I recently picked up a 10" eeePC which is a 1024x600 resolution which is ok for web browsing but reading PDFs involves a ton of scrolling.

I was just pondering how much trouble/work it would be to make the PDFs available in landscape since that would match all the LCD screens most people read them on. Anyway something to think about since the PDFs are sort of for a different market maybe they should be formatted more to fit that user rather than just being a clone of the print books.

 

[shotgun-toting chipmunk]

An interesting idea, I acutally kinda like it. However, I imagine it would be a lot of work. You would have to completely redo the entire layout of the book. Spacing, font, relation to pictures would all have to be changed.

 

[Jacek]

Start a poll or something so that you could see how many people around here share theat point of view. After all, S&P comes out landscaped.

 

[DigitalMage]

If this was ever done (and TBH I don't think it will be as Mongoose don't even put bookmarks in their pdfs ) I would hope the pdfs would be available in both formats.

I like the current format as with two columns I can read a column width on my mobile phone (which is where I read all my PDFs when I read them cover to cover).

I also like to keep rthe portrait format when I view them on screen as at the game table I often use hardcopy and so by having the same layout I can prep using PDFs, note down page numbers, and have them match up when I use the physical book.

 

[Myrmidon]

Many LCD screens now allow you to rotate them so you can place the screen in portrait configuration. I know Windows XP allows me to select whether my monitor output should be in portrait or landscape configuration. It can be a bit of a hassle if you have to switch between configurations frequently but at work I have dual monitors and I leave one monitor in each orientation.

 

[Morgan d'Barganfore]

As previously stated, this is an interesting idea but the extra work would, most likely, push up the costs/price. The extra effort might be better directed at more material rather than a format revision..