How Do I work with PDFs?

[Venger]

Hi!

I looked around for an answer, couldn't find it so I apologize if this is covered elsewhere for I have missed it.

So I'm going to put RW fully into use for my games. I'm populating RW and getting along well with it.

Now, it comes to my attention that PDF's are handled as a form of snippet. And that's cool.
I have all the Cubicle 7's source material as both hard copy and PDF but I don't necessarily want all my PDFs stuffed into RW.
So what if I just want to create a link to a PDF that exists on my local drive so I can launch it from RW? Is that possible?

The only other option I, (in my limited knowledge) see at this point is to list a reference in a text snippet.
As an Example:
In my Story Almanac I have a Container for REFERENCES and in that, I have snippets pasted from word docs, text docs, plus hyperlinks to websites, my links references all nice and tidy in one place.
But I don't want whole pdfs stuffed in there, so I would like to make a link to launch a pdf from my local drive, but I can't figure how to do it.

So I'm thinking, Maybe just add a simple text snippet for "Stuff to buy in Laketown", and then list the PDF Name and a page number?

Or if there are any other suggestions, I would be grateful to hear them.
Thanks

[Parody]

My solution is to keep them in a known location separate from Realm Works and put a shortcut to that folder on the Desktop. On my Android phone I copy them onto the device and my PDF reader remembers recent folders. If you want automatic file syncing, use something like Dropbox.

In Realm Works my custom categories include "Source" Snippets. These are single item Tag snippets where the tag is the book and the page numbers are the text. Easy enough to jump there if needed.

If you can be sure that the files will always be in the same place (a single computer, identical folder structures, or similar) then you could use a batch file as an external object to launch them. For example:

@explorer "C:\Books\Game System\Core Rulebook.pdf"

[MNBlockHead]

I started by following Parody's approach, but quickly decided that I preferred to have the content entered into RW so I can take advantage of linking, search, etc. It seems less efficient to put in all the cut/past/reformat work, but it makes running the game easier for me. There are, however, some PDF's, such as the Dwarrow Scholar's Khudzul (Tolkien Dwarvish) to English and English to Khudzul dictionaries, that are huge and for which copying into RW would do little to increase their handiness. For these, I follow Parody's approach. However, since I store my campaign and game-reference PDFs in Evernote, I've made my PDF store for RW is the same as the Attachments folder for Evernote:

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Evernote\Evernote\ Databases\Attachments

That way I don't need a separate copy of the same file for each program.

[AEIOU]

I'm a copy/paste from the PDF kinda guy. The interlinkages are invaluable to me.

[Parody]

I've also entered much of the important information from my sources into Realm Works Topics/Articles. However, I don't always include everything and sometimes edit what I'm putting in Realm Works, especially when a Topic/Article comes from multiple sources. That's where my Source snippets are very useful.

The important recommendation (to me) was to not waste database space with files that are better managed outside of the application, so I apologize for skipping the above in my earlier post.

[MaxSupernova]

Originally Posted by Parody

The important recommendation (to me) was to not waste database space with files that are better managed outside of the application, so I apologize for skipping the above in my earlier post.

But just using pointers to local disk means that you have to replicate the exact path and file locations on every machine on which you use Realm Works. Syncing the realm won't sync the actual files you are pointing to.

I don't see the point of keeping your database small if you have to make a complete copy of the files on every machine anyway.

I also would like to see how this could possibly work on the web client if the link is to a pointer on a local machine.

[Parody]

Originally Posted by MaxSupernova

But just using pointers to local disk means that you have to replicate the exact path and file locations on every machine on which you use Realm Works. Syncing the realm won't sync the actual files you are pointing to.

I agree with you. I believe I said it above as well: a workaround using batch files only works if you can ensure the file structure is the same. If you can't do that, like when you're using the web client on a device you don't control or if you're using a non-Windows device, that workaround won't work. In general, they are a possible, but poor workaround to what I consider to be a bad idea of trying to create clickable links to files outside Realm Works. However, it might work for someone, thus I put it up there.

Originally Posted by MaxSupernova

I don't see the point of keeping your database small if you have to make a complete copy of the files on every machine anyway.

There's a bunch of reasons I can think of to keep sourcebook PDFs and similar objects outside of Realm Works:

1. Do you ever use your sourcebooks in ways unrelated to your Realm? Why have them take up twice as much space, or have to open Realm Works to access them? The vast majority of my use of sourcebooks is as a player of games, not as a GM.
   
2. Do you have multiple Realms using the same game system? Are you going to put them into each Realm? That's (N) times as much space, at least for now. (Eventually you could share a base realm with yourself and only have them in there once. Deleting objects doesn't immediately reclaim the space, though, and I don't know enough about the inner workings of RW's database to know if it reuses that space or leaves the objects in there forever, just "marked as deleted".)
   
3. Are any of your sourcebook PDFs larger than 30 MB? Those files won't fit in Realm Works objects.
   
4. Most of my machines don't have any local copies of my sourcebooks, as I store them on a local file server so they can be accessed by any machine in the house. (I have a tablet and phone that have small subsets of my sourcebooks for use away from home.)
   
5. A small one is the sync time, though hopefully you're not changing the PDFs that often so it's only an overnight wait once.

I see significant advantages to putting the text of things you will reference often into Topics/Articles (notably linking and quick access when you're already in Realm Works) but significant disadvantages to putting the sourcebook PDFs themselves into PDF Snippets somewhere in your Realms.

There are things for which I use PDF Snippets, like handouts and filled-in pregen character sheets. I wouldn't have to, but those fit with how I use Realm Works. Storing sourcebook PDFs doesn't. If that works for you, though, great! I'm happy you found a solution that works for you, but I'm still going to recommend against it. :)

Hope this helps.