Hm. Seriously? This is the first time I've encountered it.

~J

Well, I downloaded my copy, scanned through the file, printed a few pages here at work, burned the file to CD, then ran down to Kinko's so that I can have a hard-copy for DragonCon.

Kinko's can't open the file. They tried for 10 minutes, but no go. Same situation at Staples. Now my hope is that they just have crappy computers that can't handle such a large file, but I'm a little worried.

Adam, can you verify that there's nothing embedded in the PDF that prevents it from being opened on another computer? (I'm at work so I can't go home to check the file there.) I know you're against DRM and all that, but I just have to be sure.

Robert

According to GSView, the PDF is just damaged... the problem seems to be with the images.

Does anyone know a batch for Acrobat to remove all images?

Whoever chose the font for the "Q" in Qualities needs a sound drubbing. Or at least to be mocked vigorously for a period of no less than one month.

~J

Well, lets say I am seriously disappointed with the PDF.
Not with the content, not with the layout - the file itself.

When paying for a PDF, I do not expect to find leftovers in need of cleanup.
Neither do I expect the PDF causing most reading programs to crash.

Anyone seeking an easy way to improve this... take a look at those Freeware.

I'm not experiencing any of these difficulties. The screen freezes up a bit when I have the bottom half of one page and the top of the next on screen, but I notice that with pretty much ever PDF I've ever downloaded.

Some of the big images slow things down a bit on my system. I'd love an option to turn those off, or a companion PDF that is more "plain text". But such options take time to implement properly, and folks were already foaming at the mouth for a release, so I understand why they were not an option.

I've got a 4 day weekend for the holiday. Now I know what I'll be doing over those 4 days. Thanks to Adam and the crew at Fanpro!

I sent the following letter to contact@battlecorps.com. Don't know if I'll get a response from that general mailbox, and since some of the folks involved seem to be reading this thread, I'll repost it here. See below.

Of additional note, opening the file in a text editor reveals that the file is a PDF 1.5, which is the spec used in Acrobat 6 files.

--

Hi there,

Today I purchased the $25 Shadowrun 4th Edition PDF download from your site. I have encountered considerable trouble attempting to open the file once it is unzipped. I have downloaded the file multiple times on different computers, all running Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.2 using both Acrobat 6 Professional as well as Apple's own Preview PDF viewer. The file was initially extracted using Tiger's built-in unzipping program. Subsequent downloads were extracted using StuffIt Deluxe 7.

Using Acrobat 6 [corrected from originally stated "Acrobat 7"] Professional, the file simply never completely loads and the application hangs, requiring a forced quit. Using Apple's own Preview program, the file loads and the bookmarks are visible, but the first page's colors appear to be color shifted and the program crashes when I attempt to go to another page.

As an experienced web developer, I'm very familiar with the creation of PDFs, the downloading process, and the other details involved with viewing PDFs. So I'm at something of a loss to explain what the problem would be if it's on my end.

Can you please check this file yourselves? The file in question is:

FPR26000.SR4.zip (43MB)

... which unzips to provide:

FPR26000.SR4.pdf (53MB)

Is there a specific version of Acrobat required for viewing the file? Is there a specific operating system required?

Thanks,
Brad

--
Brad Kelley
Interactive Developer
9714 East 27th Street, Independence, MO 64052-1310

web: http://www.coolgrafix.com
email: brad@coolgrafix.com
home: 816-254-0596

Mine works great, on Acrobat 7. I wouldn't suggest using any other programs, while PDF may be an open file format, it doesn't mean that it has ever been re-implemented properly. (See: Anything on *nix, what Acrobat 4 can read crashes most of those programs, especially when graphics were on there).

Indeed - but when most of those problems go away with the use of a free, automated tool with a size of less than 300KB, it seems... unfitting.

Well, mostly images that are either covered with other images, or simply not on the page anymore... consuming space, decoding time without beeing even visible.

There were some issues to removing those within Acrobat, which is why they still ended up there. It's certainly something that I hope to avoid in future PDF releases.

Well, sad to hear that Adam, sorry for sounding harsh.

It looks like Acrobat ver. 7 isn't as reliable as it was, say, back at ver. 4...

I own nearly all of the SR PDFs DTRPG has posted and they're naught but a joy to use—what system version are you using?

~J

Just curious... How many people here are on Mac? I know it's a minority platform, but I don't seem to be the only one. I installed Adobe Reader 7.0 and the pdf works, but Preview's my default app to open pdf files. If Mac users constitute a significant proportion of SR fans, then it'd probably be a good thing to let FanPro know.

Well, it seems to work just fine for me (Dog be praised!) with Reader 7. A little slow in loading each page, but that is to be expected with the graphics involved.

I generally don't use Preview, though. I know the file is gimped in it, and will hopefully figure out /why/ so it can be fixed.

I've been trying to get my PDF to work on my Palm and I'm having no luck. I'm using the current version of Adobe Reader for Palm OS and the prog has been trying to convert the file for the past twenty minutes. Anyone else have Palm Specific problems?

Any reasons for avoiding RTF files?

If you can give me more information I can file a bug report with Apple about it. They've probably already got one, but that's the risk they take making the list private.

~J, ADC member

This is not a Preview issue. The PDF is whacked. It won't open in Acrobat 6.04 Pro even though it indicates it's an Acrobat 6 document (PDF 1.5 spec). If it's an Acrobat 7 document, then it should indicate PDF 1.6 spec inside the file. If it requires Acrobat 7 to read, that needs to be mentioned on the product description at BattleCorps and where ever else it can be purchased from.

Do I understand correctly that Adam created the file? Did I read that correctly? If so, Adam, can you describe the process you used to create it? What program was used to layout the document, was it exported or distilled, etc.

Would love to get this resovled without trying to get my money back. Something I assume would be a lost friggin cause. =(

It was exported from InDesign and stiched together in Acrobat 7. As I've said, I'm working on researching and resolving these issues.

Yeah -- and a recent migrant to it, so I haven't quite learned all of the new bells and whistles yet. Oh, for the days of Acrobat 3, when a PDF was a PDF.

I've had some good experiments tonight, though, and while I ain't declaring victory, I think I'm well on my way to fixing these problems. Thanks for the offers of help, and if I do find myself unable to fix things, I'll drop you a line.

This just in: Same exact problem on a Windows XP SP2 machine running Acrobat Pro 6. Specifically, the file never seems to get done loading and eventually the process has to be killed. This is the same behavior I was seeing on the various Mac OS machines also running Acrobat 6 Pro.

The thick plottens. Could it be an Acrobat 6 Pro issue solely? [insert organ music here]

Ok, another update. I just installed Acrobat Reader 6 on a Mac OS X 10.2.8 machine here and it opens the file with no problems. I also installed Acrobat Reader 6 on another Windows XP SP2 machine and it also opens the file just fine.

So, it seems to be an Acrobat 6 Pro-only issue (Ok, Apple's Preview aside, obviously). I'm, frankly, stunned.

Same here.

Bad enough I hate Reader 7 and spent around 75 min installing it correctly, I don't like the fact that the first couple of times I opened it, it took up over 250MB of RAM to open a 53 MB PDF when I've made larger that were far less RAM-intensive with Acrobat Pro 6 (although Reader 7 itself is a major part of the problem, which is the other reason why I hate it).

Uhmm.. Any change of the Quick Start Quide coming soon?.

So we can convert our SR3 characters?

I read the whole book last night (it's 10:00 AM where I am now), and in my opinion character conversion makes no sense at all. Both games aren't compatible. And there are five years between them.

You read ~350 in one night? My respect to you!

Starting at 6:00PM yesterday until 6:00AM today. Lots of images in there.

Hehe. My GameMaster did the same last night.. He got it around 9 PM, and this morning at 9 AM the first mails spun around the group about starting with the new rules In 2055 (minus wireless) for 2-3 game sessions.

Now the talk goes on simply using Build Points to build the characters, and then see how much they actually cost in BP and then do some rounding, finding a common BP all must adjust to.

Time Zone Denmark.. i can't remember if its +/- 8 or 9 hours. (its +1 from GMT)

Erm, just a reminder that Quick Start Rules and the SR3 to SR4 Conversion Guide aren't the same thing. Quick Start Rules is a pamphlet to get people started on playing a new RPG. Both SR2 and SR3 had them (along with Earthdawn, Vampire: the Masquerade, and many other RPGs, AFAIK), and it's quite likely that SR4 will have them , too. An SR3 to SR4 Conversion Guide would be another monster entirely.

Hmm i just seemed to remember a statement about it including some conversion rules...

Anyways.. after talks with my GM, I Think a BP creation session will work much better, removing any of the differences between races and Archetypes the old rules caused.

Just bumping the thread.

Any news on efforts to provide a new and improved Acrobat 6 Pro-compatible PDF? =)

Please refrain from bumping, especially if the thread has seen responses within the past few days.

~J

Just right now, after removing all those green bars on top and bottom of every page to create a printerfriendly file, my computer is running hot optimizing the PDF, while hopefully killing overhead and flattening layers, which will eventually result in a 1.3-PDF.

Is Anyone at Fanpro actually working on making an improved/printable PDF?

How will those of us who already purchased it be able to get it?


Inquiring minds want to know..

Thanks in advance.