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Do You Want Text Files? (Poll)
🕑 Added 2021-09-15 07:50:11 +0000 UTCI received an email from a customer the other day, asking for the contents of one of our larger dressing books in spreadsheet format. They found the PDF unwieldy to work with, and difficult to extract from. Sadly, no such version of the book is available—I tend to flee at the first sign of a spreadsheet—but the request got me thinking.
Would You Use Text Files?
I think plain text files (the .txt format) could work particularly well for some of our books (and not work at all well for others).
For example, a plain text version of a 20 Things or Monstrous Lair instalment could be jolly handy. You could easily extract the entries you wanted to use and ignore the rest. I assume adding the material into a VTT would also be easier. (But here I would be guided by someone wiser in such things).
A plain text version of Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands, however, would be somewhat less than useful.
I've uploaded a sample text file (using markdown) so you can see what you'd be getting.
So would you want/would you use plain text (.txt) files, if we provided them? I’m keen to get your views, so please vote in the poll below.
Comments
I would copy paste into Roll20 handouts, but only very occasionally (while prepping a larger scenario and I wanted to assemble prebuilt color commentary for myself. I don’t think I’d ask you to do extra work to generate the txt, but would appreciate it if easily available.
Jeffrey Good
Is there a "maybe some" vote?
Jack Neller
Hit and miss for me. Depends on the content. Someone else my find them invaluable, but I probably would use them rarely.
Gregory Simkins
Text would be great - PDF copy is 'nice' but not for my use I always have to drop my copy/pastes in notepad++ to strip and join first, particularly if I'm looking to add into my table smith / inspiration pad tables.
Oxxon
If you can easily generate lists, sure.
Unless it is something you can generate with the press of a button don't put any effort in it. Pdfs are human readable and can be used for cut'n paste. An extra format is only useful if it can be read by a program for automagic transformations.
Garth Hill
also, i've just confirmed this, i can already copy-paste from the PDF. why would i want to distract someone from Creighton's team with making text-only versions when i can already copy-paste the PDF?
Garth Hill
it's an interesting idea, but ... i'm already stressed for prep-time. i don't see putting in the effort to create specialized tables in spreadsheets or text versions -- in general i skim/read the PDFs sporadically, pick what i like, jot down the numbers on an index card, and just refer to them during play. that's as far as the "manipulation" of the tables goes for me.
Robert Nichols
txt files would be convenient when ever i need to copy info, but on the whole. not convenient enough for me to want the.
If you're already using markdown, you could generate a nice Epub. An epub file will be easier to read/open for most users, I would thinkg. It's not complicated to do so, with pandoc
Brad F
I can't think of an immediate use for the text files but that doesn't mean I won't find a use for them in the future. It might help with extracting text into my own document (really just another text file I read on emacs) but I generally don't have too many issues doing the extraction with your PDFs.
Hedgehog Cannon
It's helpful for me, no doubt, but not helpful enough that I would want you to go through a lot of extra work.
