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thoughts on the 2012 Compendium

 Post subject: Re: thoughts on the 2012 Compendium
PostPosted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 1:46 am 
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Apocolocyntosis wrote:
The two most important things for me:
• The type is too small. I don’t care if it is 6pt or 5.5pt, it is too small. It does not need to be this small, there is plenty of space.
• The type is negatively tracked in the pdf. I have shown this in the other thread, it is the same in the new pdf. I don’t care how or why it got there but it is unnecessary, harms the readability of the text and should go.
If for some unimaginable reason the type must be this small, change the typeface. I know GW used Garamond, but they did not put it through such abuse (5.5pt negative tracked), use a typeface with enhanced legibility at small sizes.

As I mentioned previously, in the A4 sized document, the Contents page is mostly in 5.5pt because all the line entries push it over into multiple pages. If people want 2 pages of contents that's easy enough to do. <shrug>

Apocolocyntosis wrote:
Other stuff
• Headers should be placed consistently and not swap between landscape and portrait.
• Page numbers are missing from landscape pages – why care? Because the pdf document page numbers do not match the page numbers in the index, so when i navigate via page number i NEED to be able to compare document page number to pdf page number.

It will look ridiculous if you have portrait headers for a landscape page.
The PDF page numbers do not match due to the first page and index page not being considered "numbered." I specifically did not number reference sheets and the page numbers are there only to mark where each list starts.

Apocolocyntosis wrote:
Is this document designed for print or screen? Are you envisaging people just printing off odd pages on draft, or spending many monies getting it full colour laser printed and bound? Im afraid the answer is probably yes to everything.

And that's a problem because...? Isn't having the options a good thing? if you want it printed in bits, you can. If you want it all, you can.

Apocolocyntosis wrote:
Landscape pages for references primarily bother me if many people will print and bind this document, as they will have to swivel it around every other page.

Seriously? :D That's a hardship because...? You prefer cramped reference sheets then? Remember several of the lists' reference sheets run into 3 pages on Landscape already. Push them into Portrait and you'll have likely 4-5 pages of reference sheets. You can go back to the "all in one" reference sheet design per race if you like but you actually just make the player's task of finding unit entries longer. <shrug> Do as you will I guess.

Apocolocyntosis wrote:
Spectrar Ghost wrote:
I can't speak for most of your points Apoc,

Not getting at you here SG, but just in case other people think this as well. I am not trying to make nothing out of obscure points, LOOK at the document. Print it. The type is far smaller than it needs to be in that space, I'm not saying that it is impossible to read*, I am saying it is harder to read than it could/should be for no valid reason. The bullet points are irregular etc :D

I have to laugh here because I set the margins specifically because you complain about documents not having margins.... :D

BlackLegion wrote:
What bugs me is that sometimes you have a page split which splits a unit's stats line. Or you have one page where there is nothing but a single line from a previous page.

Ok, this does not happen in my A4 document. I am wondering why the change to Letter was necessary and then released instead of the original document....


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 Post subject: Re: thoughts on the 2012 Compendium
PostPosted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 10:19 am 
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Ok one last try then ill be quite and go cry in a corner ;)
Dobbsy wrote:
Apocolocyntosis wrote:
The two most important things for me:
• The type is too small. I don’t care if it is 6pt or 5.5pt, it is too small. It does not need to be this small, there is plenty of space.
...
As I mentioned previously, in the A4 sized document, the Contents page is mostly in 5.5pt because all the line entries push it over into multiple pages. If people want 2 pages of contents that's easy enough to do. <shrug>

Ok for the second time, as said in the other thread i do not mean on the contents page. I even showed you a screen shot of where your in-table text was 5.5pt (ok 5.64 pt)in the other thread, how much does it take?
Image
./\ that is a main space marine unit table, tell me that font is 6pt, look at where it says 5.64pt and tell me it is 6pt ::) but arguing over 0.36pt is stupid*, because:

Again, as I said here, clearly, I don't care if it is 6pt, whatever numerical size you give it is, it is still too small. :o You say it is bigger than 5.5pt, i believe you on your end, well on the pdf we all have this is not the case and it is still negatively tracked anyway.

*but does illustrate that there is a problem somewhere, as the document you and Dave seem to have is not what we are all looking at.

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 Post subject: Re: thoughts on the 2012 Compendium
PostPosted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 2:10 pm 
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Apocolocyntosis wrote:
Ok one last try then ill be quite and go cry in a corner ;)

*but does illustrate that there is a problem somewhere, as the document you and Dave seem to have is not what we are all looking at.

Hey Apoc! I don't think it's that people don't care, but I think some people, myself included, don't fully understand what you're talking about typesetting-wise.

I have to assume Dave and Dobbsy have been cutting and pasting from various documents so that's were some of the unintentional formatting errors are coming from and the odd type-size might be coming in via pdf creation. If the original document was formatted to A4 in "Australian mode", loaded again in "US mode" and set to Letter size, and if say, "scale to fit", intentionally or not, was used in the subsequent pdf creation process, it's going to create some wonky, unintended changes.

That's what I believe is happening, I'm going to ask them both for the raw files to look at them more closely.

Thanks for your keen eye... and thanks to everyone else for picking up the torch I dropped!

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 Post subject: Re: thoughts on the 2012 Compendium
PostPosted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 2:25 pm 
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Chroma wrote:
but I think some people, myself included, don't fully understand what you're talking about typesetting-wise.

It is too small :)

The numbers or technical terms involved do not matter, it is too small.

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 Post subject: Re: thoughts on the 2012 Compendium
PostPosted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 2:27 pm 
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Apocolocyntosis wrote:
The numbers or technical terms involved do not matter, it is too small.


FWIW, I agree with apoc.


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 Post subject: Re: thoughts on the 2012 Compendium
PostPosted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 2:29 pm 
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Apocolocyntosis wrote:
It is too small :)

The numbers or technical terms involved do not matter, it is too small.

Oh you! ;D Yes, I agree with that... *laugh* It's all the "tracking" and "em-dash" stuff that is confusing people.


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 Post subject: Re: thoughts on the 2012 Compendium
PostPosted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 2:35 pm 
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Chroma wrote:
cutting and pasting from various documents so that's were some of the unintentional formatting errors are coming from and the odd type-size might be coming in via pdf creation.


Just to clarify, I am talking document wide, all stat tables i have checked are 5.64pt (not that i have checked them all). Not the contents page, not some 1 off copy and paste oddity, all of 'em.

I too assume it is a pdf print thing and that the type is 6pt (not 5.64) your end, even so, still to small :P

Ill give up on the en dashes, but not the negative tracking, although again the tracking might be some crazy pdf print error, can't quite imagine why/how, but i can hope. Please do an export do the document's native page size (eg a4 if it is a4) without scaling.

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 Post subject: Re: thoughts on the 2012 Compendium
PostPosted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 2:55 pm 
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Apocolocyntosis wrote:
Ill give up on the en dashes, but not the negative tracking, although again the tracking might be some crazy pdf print error, can't quite imagine why/how, but i can hope. Please do an export do the document's native page size (eg a4 if it is a4) without scaling.

I believe the Compendium was laid out in MS Office (Sorry if that hurts you, Apoc!), probably Word and Excel, and, honestly, I have no idea how one would change the tracking in that, so I don't think it's intentional; my thought is that it's some artefact of mixing justified, left-aligned/right-aligned formatted text with other text during cut-n-paste, particularly if pasting from/into spreadsheet cells.


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 Post subject: Re: thoughts on the 2012 Compendium
PostPosted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 2:57 pm 
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I printed out the NetEA 2010 thing some years ago and used the list all the time. I binded them and it was easy for me when I went playing. If others had forgotten their lists or just wanted to know in which list unit xy can be used, the document was (and is!) very handy. I really liked the approach of "unit stats first, then lists", but it was sometimes very confusing. I still worry evertime when I play the Krieg list and read the note on the list in the 2010 Draft :D The thing which annoyed me the most was titans and flyers. You had to know that their stats were in the Navy / Adeptus Mechanicus lists.
I have not used the new draft for playing and I want to test it out before giving my final verdict on whether this new style is good or bad. I think it is a mayor overhead (~220 pages, whew!) but it may be benefitial to playing.
And that's the main concern on my part. I don't care if it costs ink, money, time or whatever to get the lists in printed format. I don't want to carry my notebook/netbook/tablet/ebookreader anywhere I go. And I don't want to print the list EVERY TIME I play. So, bottomline: I am fine with both versions for now, but I would prefer the version which handles better while standing at the table and you opponent wants to know about unit xyz.
Speed is the key in these occassions, and I hate slow gamers. I don't want to last a 3K battle 4 hours. There is no reason that you can't rip it up in an hour and a half if both players know what they are doing *rant rant rant*

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 Post subject: Re: thoughts on the 2012 Compendium
PostPosted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 4:42 pm 
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Well I'm thoroughly done with this thread. Do whatever you like to the document. Re-write it, burn it, use it for toilet paper. I'm past caring now.

One thing though, rather than moan about something to the Nth degree, how about just get on with finding typos so the damn thing can be put out.


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 Post subject: Re: thoughts on the 2012 Compendium
PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2012 2:55 am 
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gives dobbsy a mug of coffee and a hand on the shoulder.

No seriously, it's a huge effort you've put into this thing, and we are all grateful.

As for Apoc, I often print these things two pages to one side A4, and i can still read it. just.


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 Post subject: Re: thoughts on the 2012 Compendium
PostPosted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 6:38 am 
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Just a note.

this might be the cheapo pdf reader i use, but If i try and print an army list and datasheets it can't cope with the change from portrait to landscape.
The portrait page is fine, and full sized. The landscape pages have been resized to fit a portrait piece of paper (ie, 50%). I had to print the two parts separately.


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