TL;DR – I would like to get hold of a printed version of the Adobe Premiere Pro user manual but they don’t seem to exist. Printing one out at a copy shop is pretty expensive for low-quality. What to do, what to do, what to do?
I subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud. I have full access to all of the Adobe creative software: Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere Pro, After Effects and a million more (actually 20 or so).
I’m a video editor who needed pro software to cut on. The way Adobe’s subscription model works it wouldn’t have cost me much more to get all their apps instead of just Premiere Pro (video editing). So that’s what I did.
For most of my career I have used Avid Media Composer so I don’t have much experience with Premiere so I need to look up things in the manual all the time but I only have the downloaded PDFs. I can look up something if I really need to but mostly it would be a lot better if I had a real, paper book version.
I’ve looked all hither to thither and zither for manual’s that are printed books but I can’t find any. Apparently Adobe does not publish them anymore.
Can I somehow get a paper version of the manual? I know I can have one printed at Kinkos but even their rudimentary copier printing price ends up really high… (it’s like 440 pags long)…
Slightly higher quality printing options like thinner, better paper printed on both sides and binding that’s one-step up from a 3-ring binder was somewhere around $200 for just a single copy.
Is there any solution to this? Doesn’t anybody license the manuals from Adobe and do their own print runs? (I couldn’t find any). What do people in my situation do? Just cry and give up?
Addendum: Ok this weird… now when I look at some of the online printing places the price seems more like $30. That was not the case at all when I looked a year or so ago.
I need to look into the details more. Still, if anyone has experience with this or advice I’d sure appreciate it.
I’m guessing the reason they don’t produce a paper copy is that the information goes out of date very quickly - they’re updating their software constantly, so your paper copy may lose it’s usefulness in a pretty short period of time.
I’m guessing you have two screens - is it out of the question to use one screen for looking things up when you need to? Has the added benefit of your question being searchable, video demonstrations popping up on Youtube, and probably discussed on the adobe forums too.
I do have two screens so I could do that. My issue is it’s just a LOT easier and more natural for me to skim through pages and bookmark several different places, etc.
It might be poor adaptation to the digital world on my part but nevertheless, it is appreciably more efficient for me to use an actual book.
And now I’ve discovered the online printers advertise prices that are much lower than I originally thought. Now I wish I could check out their work before I made an order.
I wonder if any Dopers have used an online printer? By “online printer” i mean something like Smartpress where you upload PDFs, they print it all out, bind it with your choice of binding, then mail the finished booklet or book to you.
BTW, I’m sure you’re right about Adobe not printing paper copies because the program information changes so often. That’s not a big concern for me because I just want a hard copy of the fundamentals to keep on hand. If I need more recent information I don’t mind looking up the slight changes online.
I’d like to see if you have any recommendations and what you can say about the quality, value, etc.
At a ballpark guess the specs would be 470 pages or so, printed on both sides, decent quality paper stock and decent book-style or paperback style binding if it doesn’t cost too much, otherwise whatever the cheaper options are. :ike that black plastic binding that resembles spiral notebooks, or if it came down to it, just a 3-ring binder.
Thanks for your responses, SanVito. Ya gotta love the Dope. Experts on every subject in the known universe! FYI, I was just going to bed so I’m sorry if I maybe don’t respond more tonight.
Okay, first of all, ‘good quality paper’ is going to make for a very heavy, expensive book - if you think about books with lots of pages, such as novels, and manuals, you’ll see that the paper is actually pretty thin - this makes it easier to flip through. I would spec 80gsm (I think that’s c. 20lb in the US), on a silk or matt stock. Choose a heavier card weight for the cover, to protect the thin pages.
As for binding, a book with that many pages is traditionally ‘perfect bound’ - this is the classic ‘book’ style of binding. Do not choose ‘saddle-stitched’, as this is stapled - not appropriate for anything over about 40 pages.
Wiro binding (what you’ve called ‘spiral’) might not be a bad choice, as you can fold it back on itself, and the pages will stay flat, and not fall-out (one of the design flaws of perfect-bound, where the pages are glued to the spine). A good choice for a manual you will refer to frequently.
The printshop you link to looks like they have a minimum quantity on orders (100), so not right for you, but there should be places that will print one copy. I’m afraid I’m in the UK, so my printers won’t work for you.
I’m going to disagree with SanVito on paper weight. Yes, thinner paper means thinner books. But you can see through 20 pound stock. On those few occasions I have used FedEx office I specify 28 pound stock for double sided printing. (I would use 26 pound but I’ve never found it.)
Also, you will want a binding techniques that allows you to lay the printed book flat. I “manufacture” enough books that I bind my books at home using a comb binding machine. (I use 28 pound stock.) FedEx Office will not comb bind but my local busines supply retail outlet does. Naturally at some cost.
Whether spiral or comb bound, with 470 pages consider binding two or three partial books. Easier to work with.
I’m looking at a US imperial vs metric chart and don’t really understand the paper weights - there appears to be different weights for ‘bond’ vs ‘text/book’. Not clear on the difference as it’s not something we have here. If ‘text/book’ means what I think of as coated (silk, matt or gloss) then that changes the choice considerably by the looks of things. Which doesn’t help the OP much, obviously.
I get where the OP is coming from. Even with a double screen, I miss details when I look at documents electronically. Using a word search of the PDF file is also very handy electronically but I much prefer doing intricate reading from paper as opposed to a screen. Some of it may well be my age (69) but still, reading is so much more natural for me from paper.
That Kinko’s price seems really out of line. Around two years ago, I got a letter from an Australian who was complaining that a bookstore wanted A$170 for a book of mine that I have posted for a free download on my web site. It is about 550 pages. I invited him to copy the pdf file from my site and take it to a local copy shop. For about A$25, they copied it and copied the title page onto a plastic cover and put the whole thing into a spiral binder. So the second quote you got is more in line with this.
By better quality paper I meant best quality stock in my budget at an appropriate weight (overall book weight versus durability). Thanks for recommending certain papers, weight, and type.
I think I’ll be dealing with American paper weight standards so would the 28 pound stock (Amer.) ASGuy mentioned be good for my purposes here? What type of paper? The ‘silk or matte’ stock SanVito mentioned? Are there big differences in durability/strength from one paper to the next at this weight? What the heck is “bond”?
As an alternative you might consider a book written by someone else on the software. Search at Amazon or wherever and there are a number of such books.
I have to look into that more. I kind of want to have the actual Adobe books to start with as sort of the canon and then maybe acquire other books later.
I’ve read Adobe manuals for years and I’m accustomed to their format so that helps, too.
I use Lulu.com for a book that I update and reprint for my family each year, and they will do exactly the kind of thing that you want (provided you can assure them that you’re not breaking any copyrights). I pay about US$7 for each copy, 200 pages 6x9 inches. Full size pages is more of course, but nowhere near what you quoted from Kinko’s.
One of the things that sold me on Lulu.com (as compared to other self-publishing places) is that there are no setup fees of any kind. One copy will cost the same thing (per copy) as a dozen, so it is perfect for one-off jobs like yours.
I_Love_M_Vol.1: When it comes to paper there is a galaxy of choices. By-and-large, if you use a service like FedEx Office or Kinkos they will have a limited set of paper weights and finishes.
This might be obvious but if you print the book at a brick-and-mortar store visit the store to look at paper samples.
P.S. Thicker stock is only more durable in the context of surviving long use without tearing out.
You do not need volumes of archival-quality 100% cotton paper lovingly hand-bound in embossed buckram or leather, right?
I am absolutely against wasting trees, but when I really need to I print or photocopy stuff onto regular photocopier/laser printer paper and run it through the comb binder myself. Acetate transparency sheets or thicker paper or whatever work OK as covers.
Now people probably do not, and probably should not, have a comb binder at home (but the copy shop/print shop definitely does), but you may have a laser printer? If not, just pay the $15 or $20 to get the whole thing done.
Adobe Press puts out the Adobe Classroom in a Book series for many of their products. They’re highly recommended by Adobe and expert Adobe users. Edited: You can get hard copy books from them, in addition to ebooks and practice files and things.