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Printing (Big) Manuals?
Detritus writes "Many companies have stopped providing hardcopy manuals with their products, electing instead to deliver the manuals in the form of PDF files. This becomes a problem when you have an 800 page reference manual and you need a usable hardcopy that is double-side printed and bound. What is the most cost-effective way of turning a PDF file into a bound document? Cheap ink-jet printers are not designed to do this task at a reasonable speed and cost."
If you are lucky and have access to a decent laser printer at work (like a Canon Imagerunner), take there and print it out. Usually employers are reasonable about such requests. Particularly if you provide your own paper. If they'll let you print at all, they will certainly eat the toner cost for you as well.
We have several students working at our lab and the frequently print out materials for school. Then again, maybe our employer is just 'cool' about such things.
About your only other 'cheap' option is to just focus on the sections you need and print THOSE out.
Outside of that, take it to a printer (kinko's or something) and pay the cost to have it printed and bound (or at least hole-punched). If you NEED it enough, you'll PAY for it if you have no other alternative. Otherwise, your need just isn't that great.
Send them the file and they'll return a bound manual.
Samsung makes a very nice 1200dpi printer with PostScript, ethernet, and duplex printing, that's available online for around $500. Many people are opting for Samsung laserprinters these days over HP and Brother. We have one at work, and it's really nice, plus the Linux support is appreciated.
First of all, someone needs to call these companies and scream at them until they stop using PDF. If they never intended to print it, there's no point to PDF for a manual. HTML is just fine, and most browsers (including Mozilla) are more lightweight than the official Acrobat Reader.
Second, if you need to read any sort of electronic document, why not read it electronically? I mean, paper is nice because you can use it even when your computer breaks. Any other reason you want paper? Because you can probably get a decent notebook/tablet pc for less the cost of the equipment to print an 800-page book cheaply, and that way, the text is searchable -- no more thumbing through indexes.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
How much would Kinko's or OfficeMax or some other commercial copy center charge for this kind of service? It would doubtless be more expensive than having an employer do it for you, but it might be reasonably cost effective if you only need one copy. If I were to try and print 400 double-sided pages on my school's printers, that would run me $28, plus another $2 or so to bind it, so it might beat doing it at a university as well (an important concern for those of us turning in theses).
I can't believe this question is actually being asked, but . . .
Get a photocopier or laser printer. Get some binding materials - your local office store can help you with that. Then follow the instructions. It's not difficult and it isn't expensive.
In fact, I'm sure if you asked the office admins at work, they would know EXACTLY how to solve your problem. They're good at that sort of thing.
Sounds like PrintFu is what you're after.
there's more than one way to do me.
If you can find a think-pad(or any slightly older laptop with a good quality screen , i would recomend a powerbook /ibook(OS x and its native PDF functionality are great for this) or thinkpad) from 2000 or so (may need a new battery unless you can live with being attached to a wall socket) it will make a grand glorified library . This will in the long run save you alot of a cash on print outs . I use an old laptop for the same thing.
Just an alternate idea . having a browse around ebay some older laptops are going for around the same price as laser printers so it may be worth a shot .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Go to Kinko's web site. They will find a Kinkos near you, which in general will only be a few miles away. You can either upload the document, or if it's reasonably small, you can email it to the place you want it printed. You can get it printed for about $5 + 8 cents a page with a plastic comb binding or wire coil binding and covers. I like to get a clear plastic front cover and a black plastic back cover; if it's reasonably small --- say 150 pages or less --- you can get tape binding, which I think is a little more convenient, and cheaper, but not quite as durable. They'll also do Word documents and postscript.
They'll even deliver it or FedEx it to you if yu're a long ways away.
Most printers (and Acrobat, I believe) offer the ability to print multiple pages to one sheet of paper. Unless you need the hardcopy for constant reference, printing 4 pages per side per sheet of paper can be quite readable. It cuts down on wasted paper and cuts down on printing time.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
What proper nerd hasn't played around with his/her office's binding machines?
Most large doc are laid-out for printing on smaller paper and are actually oversized on A4/8.5x11. This is only good if you have reduced visual acuity. I don't, and usually go for the 4x to save paper and page flipping.
ah reminds me of those good old days when I had a matrix printer. sure they made a lot of noise, but it was pretty quick with printing out hunderds of pages with huge source code listings. and you didn't have to worry that much about running out of paper.
until you find a company that works with printers. Sneak in, act like an employee, and tell them you're "testing" the printers... then print what you need and get out of there quickly!
Grammar Nazi
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/help/learn_book.a spx does mass printing of PDF files, double-sized, bound. Sure, it costs a little bit, but probably less than trying to pull it off yourself.
This sig intentionally left justified.
Convert the pdf to a ps file, use psnup to put 4 pages onto a single page, print front and back. 800 pages becomes 100 pages.
An excellent program if you're into printing manuals yourself is http://www.fineprint.com/products/fineprint/index. html It is a virtual printer that allows some cool options. My favorite being the ability to fit multiple pages onto a sheet thereby saving time, ink and paper.
Here's a list of the feature from the website:
Print Preview: Universal print preview with editing capability. Easily add blank pages, delete pages, and re-sequence jobs.
Ink Saver: Provides options to convert colored text to black and skip graphics.
Multiple Pages on a single sheet: Print 2, 4 or 8 pages on a single sheet of paper.
Watermarks Headers and Footers: Watermark, header and footer option allows documents to be marked with the date, time, system variables or custom text.
Forms and Letterheads: Allows the simplified creation of electronic forms and letterhead. The preview feature shows how output will appear before you print it to ensure correct alignment.
Combine Print Jobs: Allows multiple documents to be combined together as a single print job. This is useful for creating booklets based on web pages, etc.
File saving: Save pages and jobs to TIFF, JPEG, BMP, text and FP formats.
Clipboard Support: Any printed output can be copied to the clipboard in text, bitmap or
Double Sided Printing Support: Booklet making and double sided printing are supported with all documents and printers. Booklets create a professional touch to all documents and are easy to read and carry. Double sided printing cuts paper use in half and reduces travel weight.
Paper Scaling: Allows large pages to be scaled to that they fit on standard paper sizes such as letter or A4.
Adjustable Margins: Margin adjustment allows for increased text sizes for better readability, by using more of the printable area on the page.
Gutter Support: Gutter capability provides space for binding documents.
Multiple FinePrinters: Multiple FinePrinters can be created. This allows the creation of "virtual printers" that have different pre-defined settings. For example, you could have a "booklet printer" that automatically prints a booklet or a "letterhead printer" that prints on your letterhead without the FinePrint dialog box appearing.
Easy server deployment: Install on a server as a shared printer for easy group or enterprise deployment.
The link is misspelt. Here's the intended URL:m l n dex.html?link=1&lid=//Online+Printing&hbxrootmenui d=//Online+Printing&hbxrootmenuorientation=down
http://www.fedex.com/us/officeprint/main/index.ht
OR:
http://www.fedex.com/us/officeprint/onlineprint/i
Take it to Kinko's, or Staples, or any other print center. It'll cost you, but they can bind it for you too. They'll do it right and for a decent price, too.
Also, use a long plastic thing that keeps the pages together (or a stapler--more fiddly) for binding. Else, you could get a binding machine that makes holes that you put the prongs of one of those cylindrical plastic binding thingies through--that will last forever.
The really easy option for binding is to just print booklet style (using your printer drivers or printing system--failing that use a PS/PDF convertor like impose+, mpage or poster first) so the pages will then stay together when folded (esp. if helped along with the odd staple).
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
I was just looking at a very similar problem:
The Kinko's in SE Portland quotes me about $25 for a single copy, double side printing, comb bound with vinyl cover. Add $1 to do spiral bound. There would be a discount for multiple copies-- and at this price doing a copy for each of us, and a couple of spares for the Jolt spills, might be a good idea.
No way I could do this "in house" for such a low cost.
That's why you force them to not use PDF, and try to convert it to something else, if that's possible.
And flipping several dozen pages in under a second? Isn't that like typing "300g" in less?
Or better: have the relevant stuff open in tabs, so that flipping through everythnig is done with ctrl+tab, not flipping through several dozen pages looking for something familiar.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I know, all the anti "dead tree" folks are going to come out of the woodwork, but MANY people still prefer to have a tech manual open next to them when they work, rather than flipping back and forth to some electronic document, searching for some information. For many people, the mind can often search, cross-reference, and make sense of data in hard copy MUCH faster than cumbersome electronic documentation.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
It's probably a good option to print the manual on a monochrome printer. The kind of graphics you see in most software manuals don't really suffer from being reduced to grayscale. Still pretty expensive, though.
It's very sad that programmers still feel the need to have hardcopy manuals, even as producing them becomes less and less practical. (Not just cost -- there's the difficulty of publishing and distributing physical documentation for rapidly-changing products.) For that, I have to apologize on behalf of my profession, Technical Writing, which has done a really lousing job of keeping up with the state of the art. We're still not good at creating the kind of well-structured electronic documents that make hard copy unnecessary. Even though most of our work never sees hardcopy, we're still horribly bound to desktop publishing models. We should delivering easy-to-use web sites and help files; instead we deliver stupid PDF files that are just huge page dumps. We don't even exploit the PDF format as much as we should -- it's a horribly obsolete format, but it does support some basic hypertext concepts that would be very helpful, if more people bothered to use them.
Then again, it's not all our fault. As I said, most techwriters are way behind the times in content management technology. But they only get away with it because documentation isn't a big priority. People in the software industry underestimate its importance and are unwilling to spend a lot of money on it. The don't grasp the skill it takes to do the job right, or the technical difficulties involved in creating and maintaining huge masses of documentation. Hint: it's not a lot easier than maintaining equivalent amounts of source code.
When I say "people in the software industry" I guess I mostly mean "developers". Whose perception drive a lot of decision making. Mangement often is dominated by former developers, and even when it isn't their decisions are colored by the code-hacker's view of reality. So maybe it is your guys' fault after all.
And than put your butt on a photocopyer, shrink it down by about 50 to 70% so you are tiny enough to read the damn thing.
I usually use the "print multiple pages" filter on kprinter just to get 2 pages on each face of the sheet, so I get 4 pages printed with each sheet, this way is much easier to carry.
.ps file and gives you 2 files to print, one for each side of the sheets, so you can easily have the pamphlet.
/bin/sh
The size letter is normally enough to read it without problems, my Kyocera (damm cheap, 40€, if you buy a used one) does a good work even with small typefaces.
When the number of pages are less than 80, I use the pamphlet filter, I still get the 4 pages for sheet but you can fold it by half, put a pair of staples and you get a nice booklet to read.
This small script accepts a
#!
psbook "$1" | psnup -2 -pa4 | psselect -e > "A.$1"
psbook "$1" | psnup -2 -pa4 | psselect -o > "B.$1"
You need a heavy-duty laser printer for this if you want it printed in a reasonable time. You could ask permission to print it at work (or ask a local business), they'll probably let you do it for virtually nothing more than the cost of the paper itself, possibly toner. At the university I go to they'd let me print it for free, no questions asked. It's fairly common for us students to need to print out large documents such as technical manuals from PDF.
Printing would still just get you loose sheets, however, and you specified hardback. I would suggest using pre-punched paper, or punching it yourself (takes a while but might be cheaper) and then putting everything in a file. Looks very neat and the cover will last forever (if you use a proper file - I prefer all-metal ones), plus it's easy to pick out single sheets for copying or when you don't need the entire manual at once.
Quality, performance, value; you get only two, and you don't always get to pick.
Most commercial software manuals, pdf or otherwise, specify in the copyright section that reproduction of the manual requires the company's consent before doing so. Not thinking this was actually enforced, I took a CD with a 1000+ page pdf manual for Steinberg Cubase to be printed, only to be told that they couldn't print it due to the copyright restriction.
The solution was simple enough, I emailed Steinberg asking permission to print it for personal use only, yadda yadda, and they replied (rather quickly, surprisingly) and said it was ok. Took a printout of the email to Kinkos and they happily printed the manual for me.
I realize I could have easily forged the email from Steinberg, but I considered the possibility, however unlikely, that Mr Steinberg would find out and make an example out of me via a hearty copyright lawsuit, thus ending my home recording career even before it started.
Not that I have anything against Germans.
The neutrality of this sig is disputed.
you can usually find them really cheap, many can still print thousands of pages, as well, most printshops can print pdfs cheaply and easily
/.
however, of course, the least expensive solution is to buy an old impact printer
could we raise the bar here a little
Words to men, as air to birds.
If you are at a university, or can get to one, it might be worthwhile looking around for an engineering major. As I understand it, they typically have free, unliminted printing, so if you could get one to print this for you, then all you have left to worry about is binding. This certainly works, and happens often at my school (U of Michigan) once in awhile a prof will throw a large file at you and tell you to read it, and printing it off is certainly easier for most people.
Holy cow people.. ink jet printers are not designed to do anything except lock you into expensive ink cartridgeds - get a life - get a laser
The GP poster is not talking out of their ass, I have experienced the problem myself.
CHECK WITH THE PRINTER MANUAL BEFORE DOING THIS!
--there's a great need for publish ready electronic tech manuals, at least over on the blue collar side of things. Weekends I work on machinery, I've just come in from having two manuals outside where I can reference them as I work on some small machinery. Sucks. Duh, your hands get oily and stuff. It would be nice if I could just printout those sections I need and not worry about smudging the manuals I have, the deal is, very few *good* mechanical manuals in print ready format exist from the manufacturers. They just scan in a dismal poorly written and poorly drawn master copy and give you that, usually they suck and are unreadable *if* they even have them. Most places just slide out of it with a "see your local service dealer", they don't even provide a bad manual, let alone a good one you can print out.. Well that's an expensive sucky deal as well, like I'm going to drop what I am doing and go haul some piece of crap 30 or 40 miles round trip to get a few tech specs or to look at a drawing, and pay them 60$ an hour for that once I get there when they want you to "drop it off" for "service". Uh huh, great deal for me.... That was one of my fondest hopes with watching the personal computer revolution happen, unfortunately it hasn't gotten much better from my perspective. Perhaps in white collar clean hands IT it's better with tech manuals, don't know really.
You would be my friend by now if you were not Anonymous!!!
Fortunately, if your office has any digital copiers, (in my case, a Ricoh 1045), they are the ultimate solution to this problem. Plug the copier into your ethernet, configure your computer to send it PS or PCL over TCP/IP, and bingo - you have an very high-speed monochrome printer that also duplexes and (optionally) hole punches. I printed the entire Adobe PostScript manual (around 1000 pages) in about 45 minutes, duplexed and hole-punched, and plopped into a 4 or 5 inch binder. Job complete.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Staples...or pretty much any office store will always run coupons and specials. Call them, find out what they are, what days they are for, and if they can beat out the competitor. Even if they are the lowest price, they go to insane measures to cut the competitor if they are threatened with it because their profit margin is so high and they figure that they will create return business if they get you the first time.
User writes: Recently, while sitting on the commode, it occurred to me that I may not be wiping my bottom properly. So, I ask you fellow slashdot readers, what is the best way to wipe? Do you fold the squares and wipe folded, or is it more efficient to ball up the paper? Also, after how many wipes should I look down at the paper? I know that the first wipe will be dirty, so I try not to look at it. How many wipes until you look at the paper to make sure you're clean?
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
Here's a good reason: reading stuff on paper is easier on my eyes. It is bad enough staring at the screen for long hours coding and doing other things.
Have you tried using an LCD monitor for text? I've found that they're a big improvement over old flickery CRTs, and other Slashdot users seem to agree with me.
Why would we want to use paper?
1. It's hard to take a dual P4 Xeon workstation into the john to study a PDF.
2. See #1
Seems to be about that easy.
Okay, sight gags aside, it would be acceptable if we had head-up displays and PDAs with voice-activated readers that moved around HTML-based help files. Then you can fix the router going nuts and not have a PC around to read the PDF.
I do of course agree that PDF is a bad bad file format to use for manuals. There's really no excuse for it. However, that being said, while HTML is a lighter way of doing it which can even include snazzy visuals for the attention impaired, it is still only as good as the writer's job on it.
So a few new rules: mostly text HTML, text whose content is full, broad, and relevant, and no more letting programmers write their own manuals. I'm a better tech writer than I am a coder any day which is why I don't write the docs to my stuff myself and don't work on code on anything I have to document. Cleavage is important for clarity and broad POV in thinking out how the casual user will see it instead of what I thought they would see.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Why do you need all 800 pages? Why not just print out the sections you use most frequently, and reference the others via the pdf when you need them?
Or, take the PDF to Kinkos and say PRINT.
Wow, that was hard.
the bible?
Thank you, I'll be here til Tuesday,
Try the veal!
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
and you can JFGI
also, Don Lancaster has been writing about it for over a decade
printer
= printed manual at a reasonable price.
OT I know, but it really bugs me that my local elementary school is full of inkjets and screaming for supplies because their budget is overstretched. They could cut operating costs by giving all the teachers laser printers, and having only a couple of color printers for the rare things that need it.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I used to agree...now, I've entirely adjusted. The last time I had eye strain was back when displays were below 1024x768.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
I work at a printing company. My work involves printing about 40,000 pages of paper a week. I'm lucky that I can print, copy, and bind anything that looks ITish and make it look like work related. I have spiral-bound copies of a boatload of XServe reference pdfs just because I got annoyed at looking at the pdf on the screen, even though I've only used them the day they were printed and they've been tucked away in a drawer since.
Now, for something useful to answer the question at hand: Find a local, small printing company. They're all over, you just have to look. Call up and ask to speak to their IT dept. I've done small printjobs like manuals, they're insanely easy and fast to do, and a single copy of a 800 page manual (assuming that means 800 planes, 400 double-sided pieces of paper), 3 hole punched in a binder, would cost us roughly $50 to do. This is not a price quote, just an FYI. Reasonably we'd probably ask about $70 to $100, cheaper if it's for an existing/prospective client or a personal favor.
If you need lots (hundred or more) of copies, you can go really cheap with the "tissue paper" that prints off of a web press and get them for as little as $5 a copy, depending on how you bind them. Unfortunately, we don't do that where I work but we subcontract work that we get that does need it.
Back in the day when All I had was a dinky inkjet and a HP Laserjet 5L, printing 50 page manuals (RPG, game, whatever) was a bear.
Now, I have an HP Laserjet 4si, secondhand from a repair shop (cost: free)
repairs/add-ons: $25 for legal paper tray (@500 sheets)
A jury-rigged roller fix repaired the lower tray.
The thing has 1,750,000 pages on it and routeinly does 200 a day (supplemented by a newer and far less workhorseish HP LJ 1200). It supports duplexing, so all i'd need do is print a large document, then flip and re-feed.
Cost of toner: $40 for a 800-page cart
the cheap paper is 90% of the cost per page...
Solution for the commoner:
find someone with one of these big, honkin' lasers, bring your own paper and print away, or find an old 4si on the cheap.
Logistical Chaos Officer http://www.slagg.org - LAN Gaming in Sarasota FL,USA
Try PrintFu!
http://www.printfu.com/
If I had to print 800 pages I would use psnup to reduce the number of pages by 2. Here, in Italy, commercial printing cost about 0.03 euro per page, 0.03*400=12.00 euro. Of course it is not cheap, but 12 euro are not that much.
this post contain no useful information, no need to mod it down
Don't be so radical.
(print even pages)
psbook -s16 file.ps |psnup -n 2 |psselect -e |lpr -P printer
(re-feed your pages, print odd pages)
psbook -s16 file.ps |psnup -n 2 |psselect -o |lpr -P printer
Will print a nice manual, in several 16 pages booklets, that you can bind with your own stapler in the middle (hint: open the stapler all the way, plus the side of your desk is your friend).
If you used a nice laser printer (a cheap one will do) then you have a nice, book sized manual, as easy to read as a common book.
That would be for A4, but if you would like bigger sizes, you can do some tricks to print on legal size, and chop the top and bottom margins, acheiving book-grade font sizes, but you are on your own (hint: man psbook).
Of course, only use A4.
I think that's their name now! :D I believe that they can take a PDF file and print it double sided for you and they can even bind it for you.
At work, I try to keep it electronic when possible, but then print out the parts I need. I always have a machine that can read it around and it's not terribly bad to be using the PDF on one machine or window and doing the operation on the other. I DO print some manuals and for that, I use a Xerox x432 ST Document Center or a Xerox Docuprint 75 or a Xerox Docuprint 92c. The last two print documents at 75 ppm for the 75 and 92 ppm for the 92. All three of these have stitchers as do other printers in the Xerox line. They almost all understand Postscript as well as PCL. They are also NOT cheap. Fedex/Kinko's stores all have similar hardware and you may be able to just hand them a floppy or CD with the manual on it and they can spit it out for you.
Gorkman
What do you mean "wipe"? I thought that's why we wear underwear...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
Have you considered contacting the company to see if they sell printed hardcopies? Even though most software packages ship with electronic documentation, some companies still have dead tree versions available for sale. It's just cheaper for them not to include one with every single copy they sell.
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
800 page PDF printed and bound costs $24.00.
n t=800
http://www.printfu.org/?mcAction=getPrice&pagecou
You wear underwear? I thought that's what toilet paper was designed to prevent.
Yeah, alright, ok; my girlfriend didn't fall for it either.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
I needed a manual printed (perfect bound - like a paperback novel) last year and went with CafePress. They have reasonable prices--I think I spent $15 on a 200-page book, one copy. Decent quality, but the pages were a little yellow.
Then I found Lulu. Same kind of thing, with a base price of $4.53 per book and $0.02 per page. They do have a page limit of 700 pgs, which would translate into a whopping $18.53. Anyone have any experience with them?
I don't know about you, but I go to university here in Las Vegas. The computer labs here charge $0.02/page single sided, $0.04/double sided. I can print out an 800 page book on their high speed printer in about a half-hour for only $16.00, plus cost of binder.
If you're near a university, or attend any extension courses, you may be elegible to use their computer labs. Check out the price per page and that may be the cheapest option for you.
IIRC, CopyMax inside OfficeMax only charges $0.02/page for copies. Not sure on the charge for printouts.
Get a Pentium 1 laptops or something and use it as a portable manual.
Can't you just print the section or chapter you need on a JIT basis?
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
Is this discussion really that important? Aren't the alternatives pretty obvious?