Rulebooks from a PDF
A rulebook here is a stack of page images you turn on the table, not a file players download. If your rules already exist as a PDF, you do not have to export it page by page: hand over the PDF and every page becomes a page of the book, in order.
This is the same renderer a Tabletop Simulator import uses for a mod's rulebook, so a book built either way behaves identically afterwards.
Two ways in
From the Component Wizard
Start a new component, choose Rulebook, and use Build it from a PDF on the pages step. Give the book a name first if you want one; if you leave it blank the file's own name is used.
You are asked which folder in your files the pages should go to, the same as any other upload. Nothing else on that step is needed. You are returned to the components page while the pages are rendered.
By dropping it on the table
In a playtest room, drag a PDF from your desktop onto the table, exactly as you would drop an image. You are asked which folder to store the pages in, then the pages are rendered in the background and the finished book is placed where you dropped it.
Images become a single component; a PDF becomes a whole rulebook. Dropping files on the table is host-only.
What happens next
Rendering is done in the background, because a long book takes a while and every page is an upload. You can keep working; the book appears on the components page when it is done, and the project's activity panel shows it while it is running.
Each page becomes its own rulebook component, all sharing the book name. That is what makes them one book to the Deck & Stack Builder, the components page and the room's page-turning alike. You can rename, reorder or delete individual pages afterwards like any other component.
Page size is taken from the PDF, so a landscape book comes out landscape rather than letterboxed inside a square.
Limits and costs
- Pages count towards your storage like any other artwork, because each one is stored as an image, in the folder you chose. You can move or delete them later from My Files.
- Very long PDFs stop at 60 pages by default. You are told when this happens, and how many
pages were built, so a shortened book is never a surprise. (Self-hosting? The limit is the
PDF_MAX_PAGESsetting.) - A PDF larger than 100 MB is refused.
- Pages are rendered at 150 DPI, which is sized for reading on screen rather than for print.
If it does not work
- "That PDF could not be read." The file is password-protected, damaged, larger than the limit, or not really a PDF. Nothing is left behind in your project when this happens.
- A storage message instead of a book. The pages would have taken you past your storage limit. Free some space or add a Storage Add-on and try again.
- Nothing happens at all. PDF rendering needs a tool installed on the server. If TTS rulebooks also come in without pages, that is the same cause; report it.