Viewing Traveller PDFs on an Amazon Fire HD tablet

[IanBruntlett]

Hi,

Is there anyone out there who views Traveller PDFs on a tablet?

Would be very interested to know if it works for you and what your experiences have been.

TIA,


Ian

 

[Reynard]

I picked Fire 7 years ago because PDF support is integral. I now own a Fire 10 and still have no issues with its PDF support. That include MANY Traveller books and products.

 

[Erias]

Generally, I use a tablet when running a scenario. It works fine: I highlight important parts of the adventure and I insert some notes for myself.

As for the rules, I largely prefer hard copies but when I'm looking for something very specific I might choose to research it on the pdf version (not always though).

Obviously, when I'm not home I use my tablet

 

[Tay]

I have a mix of Tablets.

Samsung -Galaxy - Looks fine and works well. Is also nice and easy to hold
Surface Pro - Windows so everything works. Can be a heavy on the hands after a while, but other than that its fine. Very good size screen for PDF's

 

[Blueshift]

I do. I have a library of PDFs ever at hand that way. Over the years I've picked up a few Fires, and I have them in 7, 8 and 10-inch.

The new 2020 HD8+ has a lovely display, nice and clear, able to display even an A4 page clearly enough to read comfortably without having to zoom in. The extra RAM is welcome.

HD10 was already good enough for this purpose. It's bigger and heavier of course, though still not as much as a hardback book.

I find the 7s a bit small, but serviceable in a pinch, and certainly handy, although the displays are a bit glare-prone.

Install Play Store if you can and get Xodo for the best PDF handling in my opinion. If you want to keep it as-is, there are a few decent if uninspired PDF readers available in the Zon store. Foxit might be a good choice in that case, even though it's a bit pricey; at least it's stable, capable and ad-free.

 

[Condottiere]

Not being eagle eyed, I prefer larger screens, and it only goes downhill as you get older.

After I gave up laptops, I eventually bought cheap(ish) Samsungs FHD 9.7" and 10.1" when they came on sale; I got the impression that the older 9.7" had a better and clearer screen, but that paperback and booklet sized publications are readable.

I kinda suspect to get a crisper picture you should get a high resolution as possible, and if they ever get around to to it, an OLED screen, which would probably compensate for more cluttered and/or compressed typeset.

Tablets are going to become generic and commodifiable, so wouldn't invest too much in one, with the trend going to enlarged cell phones with rollable or foldable screens, or Air light notebooks, now that Apple and Advanced Micro Devices are starting to focus on them in their respective ARM and x86 architectures.

 

[Old School]

I use an Ipad Pro 10.5 that is several years old, using the GoodReader Ap. It is great for most PDFs, but Mongoose 2nd Ed pages load slowly because of the background patterns on each page. For PDFs I use a lot, I crack the PDF to remove its protection, and then delete the background imagery with adobe acrobat, and transfer that version to my Ipad. A little cumbersome to do with every Mongoose PDF, but it works great.