Sixth World Almanac electronic release!, It's out NOW! Options

[vikingwinternigh...]

Is there a street date for release?

[Minchandre]

Does anyone elses PDF have really weird maps? On mine you can see the cities and stuff but large sections are just black. You can't really differentiate between land and sea in most places unless the land is mountainous. I'm wondering if I got a bad DL or if there's been some update or something

I'm not sure what you mean; mine looks fine. Maybe you could post a screenshot of some of the relevant damage? (Preferably of NA, since that map's free so you won't have to worry about copyright issues at all).

By the way, I've finished a relatively in depth perusal of the book by now, and I have one big question: why was half the book spent on a history section that's primarily a rehash of stuff we already know? I mean, it's convenient to have it all in one place, I guess, and there's definitely some new details in there...but on the whole, I at least would have preferred more countries instead.

[Pepsi Jedi]

I love the first half. Because 99.9999% of people don't know all of that. I didn't know half of it. or if I did, I didn't know exactly when it came down and what not.

To me, the first half of the book was a rich 'lore' section and I loved it. I stopped reading when I got to the second half. I'll read the rest. Don't get me wrong but yeah. I'm very much glad they did it this way. There's 20 years of lore written out in easily digestiable format for people to consume.

Awesome.

[Minchandre]

I love the first half. Because 99.9999% of people don't know all of that. I didn't know half of it. or if I did, I didn't know exactly when it came down and what not.

To me, the first half of the book was a rich 'lore' section and I loved it. I stopped reading when I got to the second half. I'll read the rest. Don't get me wrong but yeah. I'm very much glad they did it this way. There's 20 years of lore written out in easily digestiable format for people to consume.

Awesome.

I guess that's fair. Still, and I hate to sound like Ancient History here, it seems like two half-length projects that happened to be bound in the same jacket.

[Pepsi Jedi]

I guess that's fair. Still, and I hate to sound like Ancient History here, it seems like two half-length projects that happened to be bound in the same jacket.

But the thing is, if it's two half length projects that I would buy separately, and they're in one jacket, for one price. I'm going to buy it.

I very much like the book. If my maps didn't like like night side images of earth, it'd be a bit better. I'm going to be picking this one up in Dead tree format if it makes it there too.

[GrimWulf]

Does anyone elses PDF have really weird maps? On mine you can see the cities and stuff but large sections are just black. You can't really differentiate between land and sea in most places unless the land is mountainous. I'm wondering if I got a bad DL or if there's been some update or something

Yeah I posted a few pages back about the same issue. No one replied then.

[AJCarrington]

I haven't noticed any issues - everything seems to look fine.  I got my copy from Battlecorp and am using PDF-XChange.  I did notice a problem with a download from DTRPG earlier this week and was only able to view the PDF using Adobe Acrobat Reader - think it is due to the security used on the file.

AJC

[Pepsi Jedi]

When I use Adobe on my PC it works fine. but when it's on the Ipad the maps are all fraked up. very very dark, the only thing that shows up are thep lace names, and any bright brown or very dark green sections. The 'light green' and water and stuff just blacken out.

[Catadmin]

When I use Adobe on my PC it works fine. but when it's on the Ipad the maps are all fraked up. very very dark, the only thing that shows up are thep lace names, and any bright brown or very dark green sections. The 'light green' and water and stuff just blacken out.

If it works on your PC, it sounds like a problem with your iPad rendering, then. I don't know what iPad's display resolution and available color set is like (compared to your PC), but I'm betting it's a resolution problem combined with an incompatible color scheme. Likely iPad doesn't support the colors presented in the map or is reading the codes wrong.

[GrimWulf]

On my Macbook Pro the colours are pretty much the same as on the iPad. Really hard to see. The iPad is worse, but they're both not good.

[Pepsi Jedi]

If it works on your PC, it sounds like a problem with your iPad rendering, then. I don't know what iPad's display resolution and available color set is like (compared to your PC), but I'm betting it's a resolution problem combined with an incompatible color scheme. Likely iPad doesn't support the colors presented in the map or is reading the codes wrong.

That's the thing. The IPad can show HD movies like the new Star Trek one flawlessly. It's not an 'inability' of the Ipad.

The post just below yours does seem to indicate it's a 'mac' problem though. Something that Catalyst might want to look into for their PDFs.

My previous Shadowrun PDF's all work flawlessly. I've gotten everyhting except for Vice and they all work fine on the Ipad.

[hermit]

Considering Apple has decided to hate Adobe, maybe they just do not like .pdf anymore on their new-and-cool toys?

[Endroren]

EDITED: I'm feeling pretty crabby and was a lot more unpleasant than I think I needed to be. Here is the friendly version.

1. The iPad can handle it. In fact, I happen to have one of the original map jpegs, uploaded it to my ipad, and it looks great. It's only the PDF.

2. I tried multiple readers on the iPad. They all have the same problem. This suggests the readers themselves are not broken.

3. It could be that an adobe only feature was used to build the pdf (or some other feature not widely supported). I think testing PDFs on multiple platforms, different hardware, and with multiple reader software, would be wise to avoid this sort of thing. Using something that non-Windows, non-Adobe readers can't support is just a bad idea because it creates a bad experience for non-windows/non-adobe users - a fast growing market.

4. It could be that the PDF is broken. Just because it displays fine on one OS doesn't make it "not-broken". It's like having a flat tire. From one side of the car everything looks fine. From the otherside - flat tire.

Finally, offering a "likely" diagnosis without knowing the capabilities of a piece of hardware isn't a good idea. It feels like a "must be your hardware" brush off rather than any real interest in the frustrations people are feeling.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Well, all arguments lead to an Apple problem. The source of the might be many things, including the fact that Apple doesn't want to be friends with Adobe anymore...
Should Catalyst have tested the .pdfs on many different computer's OS, kindles, iPads, et cetera? Sure! But perhaps they have tested with a single eBook and thought all of them would handle. The best thing to do is send a message to CGL directly instead of complain in a unofficial "official" forum.

[Endroren]

Well, all arguments lead to an Apple problem. The source of the might be many things, including the fact that Apple doesn't want to be friends with Adobe anymore...
Should Catalyst have tested the .pdfs on many different computer's OS, kindles, iPads, et cetera? Sure! But perhaps they have tested with a single eBook and thought all of them would handle. The best thing to do is send a message to CGL directly instead of complain in a unofficial "official" forum.

Posting "hey, is anyone seeing this?" is a perfectly reasonable thing to do here.

Doing a set of tests and posting the results is a way to narrow down a problem among a group of people with the same issue. This is typically useful and I believe it is here as well. If I had discovered a particular reader renders the image properly, this would have proved very useful to other iPad users who are reading the 6WA.

Nothing in my post criticized CGL or their testing of the PDF. I simply identified how this could have occurred and ways to avoid it in the future. You don't need to defend them from a non-attack.

Finally, who cares if it leads to Apple. The iPhone and iPad are an important platform for people doing e-publishing. Whatever the reason for the problem, there IS a problem and it should be addressed IF CGL wants to please its customers.

[Pepsi Jedi]

I will say, that itdoesn't slow me down all that much, but the maps -are- a major portion of the book and having them invalid for my platform is not fun. Sure I can pull them up on the PC and look at them but i shouldn't 'have' to. You know? I paid $25 for a 15 second down load. I'd like it to work properly.

[Stahlseele]

And here i actually thought Apple-Computers would have been used in the layouting stuff, seeing how propaganda still tells people that they are better in that regard than usual PC's O.o

[Catadmin]

EDITED: I'm feeling pretty crabby and was a lot more unpleasant than I think I needed to be. Here is the friendly version.

Finally, offering a "likely" diagnosis without knowing the capabilities of a piece of hardware isn't a good idea. It feels like a "must be your hardware" brush off rather than any real interest in the frustrations people are feeling.

I'm sorry I offended you, but all I was doing was what people do on tech forums all day long (and I am a technology professional in my day job). One person posts a problem, another posts a likely diagnosis and people go back and forth *testing* different solutions to see what works.

If you don't agree with my diagnosis, that's okay. But please accept it in the spirit it was intended in, which was not "your iPad is broken" so much as a starting point for narrowing down what the real problem is.

[stevebugge]

Well, we can fight them with Robotic Russians! err, Robotic Bears!

Make it Robotic Drop Bears and we have a true conspiracy in the works

[Adam]

And here i actually thought Apple-Computers would have been used in the layouting stuff

They are. But the libraries that Apple supplies for reading PDFs natively on OS X and in iOS are not as robust as Adobe's reader, and one of the major flaws with Apple's library is it's lousy at dealing with CMYK as opposed to RGB PDFs. Another is the lack of Layers. To be blunt, if you're on OS X, you should have Adobe Reader installed if you're reading complex PDFs -- it's better. If you're on iOS devices, you should tell Apple that you want better PDF support.

(One of my freelance gigs right now is fixing stuff on DriveThruRPG from a variety of publishers to make them work better on the iPad. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) )

[Catadmin]

But the libraries that Apple supplies for reading PDFs natively on OS X and in iOS are not as robust as Adobe's reader, and one of the major flaws with Apple's library is it's lousy at dealing with CMYK as opposed to RGB PDFs.

This is sort of where my thoughts were heading on the rendering issue, though I don't know enough about Apple's software to talk about the actual mechanics. Thank you for this information, Adam.

[Stahlseele]

They are. But the libraries that Apple supplies for reading PDFs natively on OS X and in iOS are not as robust as Adobe's reader, and one of the major flaws with Apple's library is it's lousy at dealing with CMYK as opposed to RGB PDFs. Another is the lack of Layers. To be blunt, if you're on OS X, you should have Adobe Reader installed if you're reading complex PDFs -- it's better. If you're on iOS devices, you should tell Apple that you want better PDF support.

(One of my freelance gigs right now is fixing stuff on DriveThruRPG from a variety of publishers to make them work better on the iPad. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) )

Sounds like Jackpot, seeing how those nutcases buy these things ^^

[Adam]

The iPad is a fucking beautiful and useful and fun device. And has already paid for itself. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Stahlseele]

Well . . i can't even really say:"but YOU don't have to do support for it!" anymore right now . .
Granted, on my end, it's tech-support, but eh ^^
I still think it's a fucking dumb invention. Next thing, if i had to guess, is gonna be the iPad mini, which is gonna be a 5" iPhone . .
No flash support. Micro SIM meaning you can't use your old sim without problem . . and so on and so on <.<
But let us not do this here, and derail this thread any further with my hatred for the rotten apple . .

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Please, just this last one derail (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)