PDF Import
PDF Import reads a rulebook or homebrew PDF you own and turns it into Library entries: classes, species, backgrounds, feats, spells and items, along with their effects.
Info
No AI is used to read your PDF. The importer runs entirely on your device, same way every time, and your file is never uploaded anywhere.
Every PDF is laid out differently, so results vary from book to book. You review everything before it's added to your Library, and anything that came out wrong can be fixed by hand afterwards.
Imported content is added to the game system you have loaded, so load one first.
What Is This PDF?
The first choice you make is the most important one. Tell the importer what the PDF contains:
A single entry
A class, a species, a background, or any other type your game system has. Pick this when the PDF describes one thing, like a homebrew class or a new subrace.
Full book
Only for complete rulebooks with many classes, species, spells and items.
The two modes read the PDF in very different ways. A full book is read chapter by chapter, looking for many entries of every type. A single entry is read as one class (or species, or background) together with everything it includes.
Warning
Importing a 10-page homebrew class as a full book will find little or nothing, and whatever it does find will usually have the wrong names. If the results look thin, go back and check this choice before anything else.
The types are named the way your game system names them, so a system that calls its classes "Professions" lists "Profession" here.
Pages
The Pages field limits the scan to part of the PDF, using page numbers and ranges like 12-80, 95. Leave it empty to read the whole file.
Automate Effects
With Automate effects on, the importer tries to turn rules text into Effects, like a feat that increases an attribute or a class that grants a spell. It plays it safe and leaves out anything it isn't sure about, but it can still get some effects wrong. If you'd rather not review effects, turn it off and the rules are imported as plain text.
Assign Icons
With Assign icons on, each entry gets an icon picked by matching keywords in its name and description. Icons come from every icon bundle you own, not just the core icons, so any extra bundles you've bought are used too.
Keyword matching is hit or miss. If you don't want to check icons one by one, turn this off and every entry is imported with the placeholder icon. You can always change icons later.
Free Imports
Everyone gets 3 free imports, guests included. They are shared across all your game systems.
- One free import covers one single entry with everything it includes. A class together with its subclasses, feats and spells counts as one import.
- Scanning and reviewing are free. An import only counts once you confirm it on the last page.
- Skipping parts of an entry during review doesn't save an import.
- Deleting imported content doesn't give an import back, and importing the same entry again uses another one.
Full books
Full books aren't covered by free imports. You can scan and review a whole book for free, but keeping it needs either the one-time PDF import purchase or a Player tier upgrade: the "I'm part of this" tier on Patreon or higher. If you only need one class from a book, import it as a single entry instead.
Imported content doesn't count toward your creations limit. That limit only applies to content you create yourself.
Mapping
After the scan, the mapping page shows what the importer found and how it plans to read it.
- If the importer found a table of contents, it asks you to confirm it. A real table of contents helps it split the book correctly, so skip it only if it's something else, like an index or a list of tables.
- Below that, every category the importer found (usually a chapter or a section) is listed with the type it will be imported as. You can change any of them. If a book calls its feats "Talents", map that category to Feats. Anything mapped to Skip is left out.
- Only the main categories are shown at first. Tap Show more to see the rest, including the ones skipped by default. If something you need is missing from the review, it's usually in there: map it to the right type and it will be imported.
When importing a single entry, the mapping page asks which one to import if the PDF contains more than one, and lists everything it includes.
Reviewing
Before anything is added to your Library, every entry is shown as a card. Tap a card to see its details.
Entries that are new to your Library have two options:
Import
Add it to your Library.
Skip
Leave it out. Anything in the import that references it, like a class granting a skipped feat, will be missing that reference.
Entries that share a name with something already in your Library are shown next to your version, and have three options:
Keep Mine
Your version stays as it is. Anything in the import that references this entry uses your version instead.
Import
The incoming version replaces yours. Everything already pointing at your entry, like your classes and characters, now uses the imported version.
Import as New Copy
The incoming version is added as a separate entry and yours is left untouched, so you end up with two entries of the same name.
Before you confirm, the app tells you how many entries will be replaced, added and kept.
Known Issues
The importer reads the text inside the PDF, and some PDFs make that hard or impossible.
Text rendered as images
Scanned books, and PDFs where the text is part of the page artwork, have no text to read, so nothing will be found. A quick way to check: if you can't select the text in a PDF reader, the importer can't read it either.
PDFs glued together from different sources
Compilations stitched together from several documents mix fonts, layouts and heading styles. The importer relies on consistent formatting to tell a heading from body text, so results for these are usually poor.
Getting Better Results
Set Up Your Game System First
The importer reads the book through your game system, and recognises the terms the system already defines: its attributes and the names of its content types. If the book talks about "Grit" and your system has no Grit attribute, effects using it can't be automated and the term may be missed altogether. Add the attributes and terms the book uses before you import.
Give the Importer a Pattern
Before reading new content, the importer looks at the existing entries of each type and tries to find patterns. A pattern is something that repeats in at least 3 entries, or in a quarter of them. When it finds one, it reads the new content following the same pattern. This helps a lot with automated effects.
For example, say every class in your system grants an HP increase at every level. Once your Library has three classes set up that way, the importer recognises the pattern and tries to automate the same HP effect for every new class it finds in the book.
So if you're about to import a big book, add 3 entries of each type by hand first, set up exactly the way you want them. The importer will then do its best to read the rest the same way.