If you keep them all open at once, I can see that being an issue. That is why I mentioned putting links back to the main topic from sub-topic handouts. Then you can close the main one after opening the subtopic you are interested in, and then still be able to open up the main topic handout once done with the sub-topic handout. To me, I don't understand the objection about narrative flow. Let's take a real example. In Pathfinder one, there is a community created document called "Elephant in the Room: Feat Taxes in Pathfinder". When asked to run a pathfinder game, I decided to use that document. This is a 40 page pdf, and is what I used to test the current pdf upload function. However, I don't use that version of it in my game, but use the version I built in handouts because it is easier to navigate. This is the table of contents from the pdf: Of course, not everything there has to be in game. Patch Notes, as an example, aren't something that is useful in game, so I left it out. In this particular case, there is only the main handout with sub-handouts for each chapter/entry from the original pdf that I envisioned being referenced during play. In actual use, I would never have all of those open at once, but would open the main handout, and then close it once I opened the sub-handout I needed to reference. This is in a game system where there is a basic compendium provided by Roll20 as well as several options for web sites from which to copy/paste game content/info. Let's take a look at something that has virtually no online support, because it went out of print in '94. What I will be showing is handout I built from a pdf called "The Palladium RPG, Book II: The Old Ones". A good bit of the book is actually setting material for a region called "The Timiro Kingdom". The "Regions, Nations, and Local Areas" handout is the primary handout in a folder entitled "Maps". One of the links there is to the Timiro Kingdom, which uses the same image that I use for a full map page of the area. This means players (or myself) can open that image up in a new tab to have the full scale map, so that the labels can be read. The Timiro Kingdom handout then has links to associated info, like the list of villages. This particular one is one that I plan on running one-shot games in, so I made a color map to replace the black and white original. If I am just after info on the village of Tanith, I will be closing anything else I opened to get there. The only thing I would have open would Tanith, and probably the location key. I can see the objection now to the amount of links you have to click through to get there. As part of my base game that I copy whenever I create something new, there is a handout in the main folder where player characters reside entitled "Misc Info". In a game that was centered in Tanith, a direct link to the Tanith handout would be there, and likely one for The Timiro Kingdom as well. Note that I'm not saying that I object to the idea of having in-document links to jump to locations. It would be incredibly handy. But until we have that tool, we can navigate an incredible amount of info with the link system we have now, by breaking the info down into manageable chunks and making liberal use of links. I'm not going to claim that my way of going about this is perfect either. I could have more cross links than I do, but that is just something else that gets learned through use. Still, at this point, I have an entire game system built into Roll20 and sometimes end up looking up something on Roll20 instead of the books because I know exactly where a piece of info is in my handout structure. Seems a bit silly when I have the books within reach, but that is just how things are...
