What are good options for viewing this on an iPad? Currently I only have the standard "Books" app, and while it works fine for linear reading, the table of contents is displayed with one line for each single rule, making it pretty difficult to use - one would need hierarchical display, with the displayed level chosen by some toggle, like many file explorers will do (the TOC is, after all, a treelike thing). I would also need easily accessible "back" and "forward" buttons.
(I have seen Goodreader mentioned here, but since it's not a free app I'd like to know whether it has the features I am looking for before I buy it)
On my (Linux) laptop, the standard PDF reader evince works fine, and okular has a better standard of not switching to the default display mode when changing pages, and pretty good hierarchical display of the TOC. It has a "back" function, but not visible on the default toolbar - though it's easy enough to reconfigure.
One thing I am not sure is whether the hyperlinks are supposed to link just to pages, or to places within the pages - when I use one, it seems to only link to the page, so when I am zoomed in it doesn't go to the relevant part of the new page (and when the link is to the same page, it doesn't do anything).
But really, my main problem is that the PDF rulebook is still laid out in two columns. This makes sense for the full-sized binder, much less so for the pocket rulebook, and it is pure nonsense on a file that is destined to be read on a device. On my iPad 2, zooming to a single column makes the characters slightly larger than in my original 1st ed. rulebook (and let's face it, my eyes are not what they were in the early 90's, so a slightly larger font size isn't that bad); but moving to a different page resets to full page mode, and scrolling in a zoomed in page is pretty clumsy (down, then right and up... oh wait, was I on the second column already?). Single column would be soooo much easier - or even better, an HTML-based format with no artificial separation between pages.
From a short email discussion with Scott, I understand that this two-column mode won't go away because it would require redoing the whole layout of the rulebook - something I don't understand too well, because this should really be done by software (and even if the result isn't 100% professional, it's not a big deal IMHO - readability should trump looks, at least in the electronic version). Again, Web browsers do a reasonably good job of laying out long linear HTML documents and giving the user the choice of display size. I understand the appeal of PDF because there are so many available readers on all kinds of platforms, but I still think that reading on conventional (landscape mode) computer screens would be way easier in an HTML-like format.
I also like to read PDF documents on a low-power device (10 inch eink tablet) which has a much better battery life than my iPad, and on which reading for a long time is much less tiring on the eyes; but with a two-column layout and very slow zooming, it would be unusable for such a large document.