My friend Patrick is very much against PDFs. He is right to be. I think the PDF of a book is best thought of as being a bit like a "Greatest Hits" album or one of those awful "Chilled Classics" compilations: a sort of thin, scraped-off surface film from the top of a stew that has none of the nutritious content of the meat and veg underneath. The content of a PDF may be the same as a book, but people only interact with it by skimming off that top layer. Scroll up, scroll down. Look at the pretty pictures. Read a paragraph here or there. Press Alt+Tab. Check what's going on on Facebook. Alt+Tab back to the PDF. Scroll up, scroll down. Look at the pretty pictures. Read a paragraph here or there. Press Alt+Tab. Check you email. Etc. This is not people's fault. It's the technology. The PDF is useful for easy distribution. It is bad, very bad, for actual sustained reading.
(At this point somebody will chime in in the comments about how they prefer to read books on their PDF and have no problem focusing while reading a book on screen. Good for you - really, I don't mean that at all facetiously. But you are unusual.)
There is another reason to be against PDFs. Imagine you had to predict whether it is more likely that books or PDFs will be defunct technologies in 100 years' time.
The answer is PDFs. Books have been around for an exceedingly long time. They've proved that they are robust to technological development and social change of great magnitude. PDFs have not. I make no predictions, but given that nobody has any idea what will happen over the course of the next 100 years, you have to back the humble book to last the course. And if you want to create or even merely possess things that will last, go paper.
The final reason to be against PDFs: things made from trees are beautiful. I sit here on a wooden floor with my laptop resting on an opium table made from mango wood. Next to me is a book made from paper that feels and smells gorgeous. Don't buy into the anti "dead tree" hype. Beauty matters.
PDFs are just offsetting the printing costs from the publisher to my laser printer anyway.
ReplyDeleteI just went through a ream of paper this weekend printing off PDFs from DriveThru that I couldn't find physical print copies. One advantage of this is that I have zero compunction about writing game notes all over the pages since I can just print out a clean page once it gets too messy.
I hate them as a tool, I can't read them properly, and most people just PDF-ize their full A4 or Letter sized pages, which are just too big for most screens. I use them as a proxy to making copies of particular pages, instead of copy-machine-ing, I can spit them straight to a printer. That's nice, but it doesn't replace reading the actual books, for sure. Print is King. Long Live Dead Trees.
ReplyDeleteDag-nab-it yuo kids and your fancy books, clay tablets aren't prone to much in the way of water damage as these new-fangled books and are likely to survive for thousands of years if you just don't crush them.
ReplyDeleteWeeell, Considering most clay tablets used for writing purposes weren't fired, I'd say they're *pretty* prone to water damage...
DeleteThose were unedited first drafts.
Delete==The content of a PDF may be the same as a book, but people only interact with it by skimming ... a paragraph here or there.
ReplyDeleteThis is the key. There is a, virtuous in the main, philosophy that in the age of the web information has zero cost, that information should not be kept behind walls for advantage either of power or gain. But information is often emotionally confused with knowledge, let me give an example. I distinctly remember a bizarre feeling immediately after photocopying notes for a lecture I missed, or a chapter from a book, **that I had studied that material and did not need to examine it**. The feeling can be caught by Possession == Familiarity and probably derives from an anxiety that without possession you can have absolutely zero knowledge.
As someone who has little in the way of money but spends much of that on relatively expensive books (I justify this because I have spent so much time reading I now know what is worth re-reading), I will say there are tricks for reading pdfs which make the experience very pleasant:
1- Mac with the finger zoomy pad
2- Sequential (free comic/pdf reader)
I read pdfs this way and find it a comfortable experience. However, reading which relies on computers tends to be light and brief. Reading with books you have financially invested in tends to be deep and sustained. We are still physical beings who fuss over the comfort of chairs, the orientation of desks and the impression of light as it reflects off letter-press laid-papers.
Interesting point about the information/knowledge distinction. It reminds me of the preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit (the only bit I ever really understood) - there's no point writing a preface to a book because it's just going to be cursory guff that won't mean anything except at the surface in a general way. You have to engage with a philosophical work and also its antecedents on its merits without prefaces and introductions.
DeleteHegel is well regarded in some quarters but Ive read no philosophy apart from Plato & Nietzsche whom I consider 'Wisdom' writers like Montaigne.
Delete"But you are unusual."
ReplyDeleteI assume you're just assuming that and have no clue what percentage of people dislike reading PDFs.
Hah, well apparently we now live in a post truth age so who needs facts?! If you prefer PDF you are down right deviant. Trump said so. Or was it Hilary? I forget, its my age you see...
DeleteI'm using my common sense and observations of the world around me and my fellow human beings. I resist the modern urge to back everything up with "data" and "studies" and whatnot.
DeleteHaving access to PDFs proved invaluable to my ability to research and design while living in Paraguay for 2.5 years (where traveling with my actual library simply would NOT do). But I otherwise agree with everything written here...using PDFs has sucked for me in general, ESPECIALLY at an actual gaming table.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteChrist.
DeleteThe problem has now become that books are constructed by heartless fuckwits devoid of soul. Yes, I'm looking at you every source of POD. Gotta love hardcovers that last only one opening...
ReplyDeleteI feel better now knowing I'm not alone. :)
ReplyDeleteI definitely prefer to have the actual book at the table, but when I buy a pdf I quite enjoy reading it cover-to-cover. It never occurred to me that the experience was different.
ReplyDeleteI also think electronic information such as pdfs are better for those of with more nomadic lifestyles. There are only so many actual books you can fit into a backpack. But with pdfs it really opens up worlds of information.
Finally, since pdfs are generally cheaper, they mean more people can read a wider (or at least deeper) amount of RPG information.
I love having a real book but I think there are quite a few valid reasons for pdfs.
I need PDFs, because I've run out of shelf space. I can't even buy more shelves, because I've run out of wall space.
ReplyDeleteI hate reading PDFs on a laptop or workstation, but fortunately I enjoy reading them on a tablet.
I, too, thoroughly prefer books. I've never read a PDF in my life, nor will I. The one thing I really like about PDFs is the word-search function.
ReplyDeleteDiscussing the conflict between books vs PDFs is very alike to discuss if phonographs will put orchestras out of commission.
ReplyDeleteWhile the world goes its merry way, we must not keep tilting at windmills.
It's not like the sharks against the jets, or anything.
DeleteBooks may outlast me, but they aren't the longest lasting form of information storage. This form is expected to last 14 billion years: http://futurism.com/memory-that-lasts-forever-new-quartz-coin-can-store-360tb-of-data-for-14-billion-years/
ReplyDeleteAnd then there is the company Nanorosetta that can put your books on medallions with similar etching technology.
What i do know is that i have been using the same DMG since 1980 and it shows no sign of letting up, eat that PDFs!
ReplyDelete