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I'm a frugal guy (besides dropping money on loads of miniatures lol) so I am thinking going with the cheaper epub for the Space Wolves codex. What are the real differences between that and the interactive version?


Also, I am assuming I can have the digital codex both on my home laptop and on my mobile device?

From what I understand, the Epub is basically a PDF of the book, in that you have to flick from page to page and all it does is display the info. The Ibook Interactive edition has spinning photos (most of which are on the GW site), rules you can tap through to different sections/get popup explanations of, and I think it also includes an Army Builder/Battlescribe equivalent.

I'd go with the Epub and print a copy (which is perfectly legal to do), and yes, I think you can keep it on multiple devices.

Cool, thanks

A pdf type thing doesn't bother me so long as I can have it on the laptop at home (to search through it easier with ctrl-F for list building and whatnot) and also on a mobile device...

If you download it to a mobile device it should be easy to cop and paste the file via USB or vice versa.

I recommend against the ePub version, given how superior the interactive versions are (being able to click on special rules or weapons and have an explanation pop up makes it so much more useful). If you have an Apple device, that's the way to go. If you don't... then you get sort of screwed on the e-versions.

Depending on your kit, I'd go with interactive. But, all your devices need to be from Apple, as it is iTunes-only.
The epub or mobi formats work everywhere, but are the words of the codex, with some of the flash trimming taken out.
Before you get any of them, try-before-you-buy, as there are example copies on Black Library and iTunes.

The Epub is better if you don't have iPad or iPhone. As mentioned you can have it on all devices and print it off. then you have the printed Codex, cheaper, and all you are missing is the front and back cover.

I highly recommend getting the sample files and seeing how they look. The epub I find does not always look so hot. More like just text with pictures. The Kindle version (.mobi) seems to look better to me, and you do get both files.

The Interactive sound good, but if you don't have an Apple device, they are pretty useless. Plus the cost as much (or more) than a hardback codex.

These are what influenced me to go with the Mobi/epub version.

Thanks,
Duncan

Duh, previews. Yes those would be helpful to look at huh? Thanks for all your advice guys

As an owner of both formats, if it isn't interactive edition, get it as dead tree, I would not spit on the epubs if they were on fire.

Epub is extremely awful for any sort of high use book. For dataslates, that's fine, but in an actual codex, the formatting is so incredibly awful that there's hardly any point. The pictures are stretched past decency, sometime taking a page all for themselves instead of being next to the text as a sort of fancy border or add-in, the page numbers are non-existent, flipping between sections is a chore. Interactive is far superior.

I have to agree with the general rule here. I read a lot of ebooks using epubs and while it works for linear books navigating it for rules can get a bit annoying. I'd say get the interactive (if you got an Apple device that supports it) or get a hard copy. Honestly, they should port the interactive codices to Android, I'd be so happy.

If the white dwarf ePub is any guide, bleh. That thing can't even format basic text.

The interactive edition is a bit slower than I'd like, but the glossary search function and the hot links are really helpful on a laptop. I put a spreadsheet with my army list on one side, iBooks on the other side.

The epub really sucks IMO. It's not just the Codex in PDF form, the codex in PDF form would be awesome.

The formatting is fething horrible, a 104 page codex gets formatted in to an ~400 page book. At first this is logical, because tablets can't fit as much on a "page" as physical book. But practically speaking it's a nightmare, flipping through page after bloody page trying to find what you're looking for. They put little to no thought in to the formatting because images that were supposed to be for double column have just been tacked in and it messes up the formatting. You often have pages with just a picture and no text and then the next page is just a single line caption for the text and nothing else, occasionally you even get completely blank pages.

There's a reason the epub is cheaper, it's because it sucks.

The only good thing about an epub, they CAN be exported to Word documents. So if you have a lot of free time on your hands, you can reformat the book yourself. This allows you to cut/paste all the rules out of it and in to a separate document, so you can just have a "rule book" without all the other junk, formatted however you please. But that is very time consuming, trust me, I know, I did it for the Tyranid codex.

If you don't have an Apple device that can run the itunes versions of the codices, the best option IMO is just buy the physical book and scan it. If you have a lot of free time on your hands, the best option IMO is get the epub and transfer it to a Word document and reformat it... BUT, be warned that your opponents may not trust that you did a faithful reformatting of the rules and you should probably keep an unmolested copy (either the epub or a physical book) nearby in case they have questions.

I really dislike the epubs. The interactive versions are better but by far I prefer well bookmarked pdfs. A tabbed pdf program with bookmarked and OCR'd pdfs can have you to the rules you need quicker than any other format imo (barring the "popup rules" in interactive versions that are generally not what you need to pageflip for anyway imo). BRB + codex + other guys codex + any allies 'dex + dataslates + supplements + FAQs + quick ref sheets (depending on what's in use) all open in one window which a single tap will swap between. They're also usable on any device you have so great for building lists and researching stuff outside of games on your PC.

Format shifting is legal in Australia so it's fair game to have pdfs of the codices, I forget how it is in the US.

If I were a tinfoil hat wearer I'd guess that GW created the epub's to stop people torrenting scanned copies of the physical books which are vastly superior

If you ALREADY have an ipad (the ibook interactives DON'T work on iphones or ipods.) then get the interactive thing.

If you don't have an ipad, and can't stomach the "apple tax" then get the epub version.

epub is NOT a pdf, and although they can have DRM, they are generally viewable cross platform (I can view mine on phone, tablet (android) or laptop with the right app or software). It has some similarities with pdf in that it IS a portable doc format, but it's much smaller in size than a pdf, generally.

If you have an IPad, yes get the interactives, they are very handy

If you don't I would not buy an Ipad for it.