Goodman Games

This week I acquired an iPad (a dangerous experiment for me as I have never owned an Apple product and was not sure what I was getting into).

One of the big reasons I wanted to own a tablet was to be able to casually read, on a whim, any of the PDFs I have acquired (legally) over the years. This includes a fair amount of Goodman products.

Once I got the iPad up and going I picked up two different PDF readers and began to copy over my somewhat large collection.

The only issues I have had are with Goodman PDFs. The DCC I have are all ok (some of the images don't appear but this is not a big deal) but Level Up #1 and #2 and the Lovecraft bestiary texts are a jumbled mess. Interestingly enough the advertisements in Level Up are fine - it is only the meat of the issue, the articles, that do not appear properly.

I have tried two seperate readers but the result is the same.

Has anyone else tried or noticed this? Any reason not to expect the same with Level Up #3?

Any comments or advice appreciated.

Interesting. We don't do anything deliberately to make our products compatible (or not compatible) with iPad, Kindle, or any other e-readers. It's something I've been looking into and eventually will become a deliberate part of the design. But at the moment it's a mystery to me. We did all the graphic design before iPad was released, so I guess we got lucky on some and not so much on others!

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Joseph Goodman
Goodman Games
www.goodman-games.com

Thanks Joseph.

I assumed it was a "one of those things" kind of thing. I imagine it is a font thing. I realize it is not a high priority but if you ever do figure it out please let us know. You'll get at least one more Level Up 3 order.

I downloaded the PDF of Amethyst today and am very impressed with how good it looks. I am disappointed that none of the gorgeous art shows up when I use it on my iPad. My PC makes me drool at the incredible scenes, but I get a little frustrated when I want to show someone how good it is away from my computer.

Hope you guys can come up with a solution soon. At least so I can go round up some coverts.

It is most definitely possible to view Amethyst on your Ipad...

The problem stems from a compatibility issue with the Jpeg2000 compression and the Ipad.

DiasExMachina, that is awesome news. Could you explain how you went about doing that?

I personally don't have Adobe Acrobat, but you can accomplish this by going into the Acrobat options and changing Jpeg2000 compression with Jpeg compression. Then re-save the file.

For the pdfs with image issues you can do the following (from Goodiware.com):

JPEG2000 image compression. This compression used in some PDF files can't be understood by current versions of iPhone OS (and GoodReader heavily relies on its capabilities). However, there's a very easy workaround for that.

If you have a Mac computer, open this PDF file in Mac's standard Preview application, go to File menu and select Save As command. Then resave this file as a new PDF (just make sure to change a file name, to preserve the original file unchanged). The new PDF file will be formatted in iPhone-friendly way.

If you have a PC computer, the solution would be to reassemble a file in Adobe Acrobat software (or other) replacing JPEG2000 image compression with more conventional JPEG. Print your file to a special Adobe PDF printer (installed by Acrobat). Make sure that inside this printer's settings, on Images tab two first Compression fields don't show JPEG2000. If they do, change them to JPEG.

Unfortunately the "jumbled text" issue is a font that is incompatible with iPads and iPhones. Some magazines have reissued iPad versions. There is a bug request in with Apple but no timetable. (this info also from Goodiware)

I use a product called cute pdf writer.
This product loads into your printer selection area.
this what you do:
open the pdf that you want to put on your ipad in adobe reader on your computer.
go to print it.
when the popup comes up select cute pdf writer.
and save it under a different name.
then load it on the ipad.

This is what I had to do for my kindle dx.

I just loaded level up issue #1 on my itouch, it will work for the ipod.

Hey thanks Falcarrion - I'll give that a shot when I get home.

Partial success. The CutePDF writer worked to resolve the JPEG issue. Now my Level Ups show all of the appropriate images! That is good news.

The program did not solve the jumbled fonts, however. Until Apple releases a fix the problem will exist unless Goodman and other publishers re-issue the docs in a new font.

This magazine had the same issue:
http://michaelnozbe.com/productive-magazine-looks-really-great-on-the

The good news is a number of PDFs I have not been able to read on the iPad are now available thanks to Falcarrion. I am down to a small handful of affected docs.

I have bought Amethyst: Foundations, and I want to use it on my iPad; the pictures don't show up, though, so I tried using cutePDF and primoPDF to reconvert it, but I believe that it's disallowed by the PDF's security. Is there any way I can get a version with the right sort of compression?

Try changing the Jpeg2000 compression - see Dias Ex Machina's post several rows above. That's worked for other users. Hopefully that helps.

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Joseph Goodman
Goodman Games
www.goodman-games.com

For that, I need Adobe Acrobat - I only have access to Adobe Reader. Acrobat is rather expensive...

I've really been watching the threads on Kindle, Nook, iPad, and others because I love the idea of being able to take my books and gamebooks with me on vacation.

Anyone tried some of the readers other than iPad? (I'm kind of leaning toward Nook just because I have a B&N up the road, but would be interested in info about any of them since I haven't really picked a reader out yet.)

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Marv / Finarvyn
DCC Minister of Propaganda; Deputized 6/8/11

DCC RPG playtester 2011, C&C playtester 2003,T&T since 2003,
ADRP Since 1993, OD&D player since 1975

"The worthy GM never purposely kills players' PCs, He presents opportunities for the rash and unthinking players to do that all on their own."
-- Gary Gygax
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!"
-- Dave Arneson

Anyone that is having issues with reading Amethyst Foundations with an Ipad or any other reader, please message me with your email and I will work on a solution with you.

Chris.

We've been looking into conversion of our existing products to the official e-reader formats. The challenge is that most of them are built around displaying text, not tables and illustrations - not an ideal venue for RPG's.

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Joseph Goodman
Goodman Games
www.goodman-games.com

Following up on the conversation around reading PDF files on an iPad, here's a thread that might help. Scroll down to the conversation around the PDF Reader app...

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rp ... aming.html

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Joseph Goodman
Goodman Games
www.goodman-games.com

I don't think there is anything wrong with PDFs - it is just Apple seems finicky with the fonts you use. If you do find a solution with an official e-reader format that is great, in the meantime if there is any way you could use "device friendly" fonts for your PDFs that would be very helpful.

Sorry to raise this topic from the dead.

I finally ordered two Amethyst products. Foundations and Evolution. The Evolution pdf looks great on the iPad but the Foundations is still having the JPeg2000 issue. I've tried converting it with no success. I used CutePDF (I don't have Adobe or a MAC alas).

Is there a protection on the pdf preventing CutePDF from working.

Dias if you are still around I would like to take you up on your offer from a year ago to help folks who would like the product to work on their iPad. I hope that still stands. Sadly the PM function returned an error when I tried it.

Has anyone else figured this out for Amethyst Foundations?

What pdf reader are you using?

Goodreader. Though I am willing to get a new app if it handles the issue.

i'm really surprised that cutepdf didn't work.
Goodreader is the best I've seen for reading pdfs.
There is a new app by Readdle called PDF Converter.
I'm not sure if this will work but thought it might help.

Cutepdf has worked for other Goodman products. It produced one blank page for Amethyst.

Have you tried it with Amethyst? Maybe I am doing something wrong?

I don't have Amethyst so I haven't tried it.