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Printing (Big) Manuals?

Posted by timothy on from the well-stop-doing-that dept.

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."

5 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. PrintFu by rebug · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sounds like PrintFu is what you're after.

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    there's more than one way to do me.
  2. Cafe Press? by cei · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

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  3. Outscource the job to Kinko's by mysticgoat · · Score: 4, Informative

    I was just looking at a very similar problem:

    • Manual of about 300 pages in .pdf format
    • want double sided
    • want binding that can be used effectively (stay open at desired page)
    • want some durability-- I figure about a year before updates or errata make this obsolete

    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.

  4. Re:laserprinters are way cheap now by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Informative
    A better option is to buy a refurbished laserjet 2100. I got one with a refilled toner cart and a 90 day warranty for $162.50 shipped. I then spent a further $85 or so getting a 10/100MBPS EIO card (J3113A) for it. The printer will do some kind of fancy print mode at 600 dpi where it varies the size of toner dots, and will print 300 or 1200 dpi as well. It is designed to print 20,000 pages a month.

    For still more money, you can get duplex, a second tray, et cetera. I intend to purchase the postscript simm (about $30) which doubles the memory to only 8MB (sufficient for manuals, though) and provides PS level 2 emulation, to augment the PCL 5 that the printer normally speaks.

    The laserjet 2100 is one of HP's finest black and white laser printers, and you can trivially find one with ethernet, or buy one and an ethernet EIO print server, for less than $300. They are not the fastest printers around but my 2100 will probably still be working when the last 1320 has failed :P

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  5. CafePress / Lulu by bradediger · · Score: 4, Informative

    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?