Someone mentioned the two column format of the manual. I haven’t upgraded and haven’t seen the manual so I can’t really comment on it, but I think it should be noted that it’s a real pain to scroll down one column of text and then have to scroll back up the next column to continue reading. Reading manuals on a computer screen tends to work best in a linear fashion, at least for me, because I can expand the page and scroll down continuously, as needed. My eyesight is not what it used to be.
Having said that, I’ll still often grab the C5 manual on my way to the john to learn a new bit of info, or just to refresh my memory.
Try altering the View (view menu in Adobe reader) to “Reading Mode” & 100% or so. Not ideal for all but may help with the scrolling. Also minimise the left border content view.
I’ve been using Docs to go for the iPhone/iPad to get the manual on both. The size of the file is cut back considerably in the conversion and their PDF viewer, though slow to focus on my original iPhone, works quite well in landscape mode. They upgraded the viewer a while back so that you can go directly to a page number, as opposed to paging through one at a time as it used to need. You can’t tap on the index pages, but it works. I’ve read quite a bit of manual in my coffee breaks.
Once you have it on your iPad, you can also open the file and put it on your shelf in iBooks!
I also heard they slimmed down the boxes. I don’t know about you guys but when I get my software I like the boxes to be BIG. I want to feel like I am holding something of worth. I am talking 5 kilos or more, massive shelf space please.
Until they go back to bigger/heavier boxes I won’t be upgrading soon.
And forget a manual, write me a novel about C6, print it on leather and use the blood of infants for ink.
Anyone who thinks that not printing a manual is “saving the environment” is just a sheep beleiving the BS. What a load of crap. Wake up and quit listening to all the popular environmentalism. On the other hand I am happy with a pdf manual. At least they have a manual …unlike Wavelab.
Ahh, someone with an inside view. Could you share the facts with us and let us know how many tonnes of paper Steinberg is shipping around the globe (by air). And why it won’t have an effect on the environment to lower the shipping weight by 90%?
Every 5th tree on this planet that is cut down, is cut down for paper. To produce just four pages (A4/ US letter) of paper you need a lot of chemicals and ONE LITRE of drinking water. How many pages does a Cubase manual have today? Make your calculation and multiply this by the many thousand packages that are shipped every year. BS?
what a load of rubbish…obviously cubase printed manuals aren’t exactly destroying the environment but sending out massive paper manuals to everyone regardless of whether they need it or not is a huge waste of paper.
i’m willing to bet that most (certainly all the people i know) don’t bother with the paper manuals, i’ve collected quite a few over the years and the last time i actually needed to read one was about 10 years ago.
so quite a lot of wasted paper\ink - not great for the environment no matter how you look at it…
I don’t care for a paper manual (acrobat gets better all the time) but investing in a series of multi-format e-reader compatible files would really demonstrate in my view a commitment to customer service on steinberg part so we can only wait now until the documentation team respond.
As to the environment, I just cleaned out my office/studio this weekend. I finally got rid of out of date software boxes and manuals. I had to double bag the manuals that I took to the recycling station, they weighed a ton! And I’m just one guy. If all the software producers continue to move away from thick paper manuals it will have a huge impact on the environment that goes way beyond just Steinberg.
Thank you Steinberg! Please continue to invest in R&D rather than the printing industry.
Dunno about anyone else but the slight OT re the environment, whatever point of view, I’m not so sure about the impact of anything on the environment but I only know about my house. My shelves are heaving with manuals that I don’t need. All I can say is that there is worse soundproofing around though. Especially in my studio which I have constructed out ot all the boxes you get everything in now.
I think I’ve done my bit to saving the world’s poor little plankton from those huge voracious whales.
No, Word does not open PDFs. There are some converters available that are mainly used for ebook conversions, and they may or may not be used successfully.
If anyone can do this without any hassle - it’s the producers of the document. If it was created in, say, Adobe Pagemaker, only ‘output size’ or such needs to be changed. Also a change to one i.s.o. two columns should be relatively easy. Hopefully it will be changed!
I miss a printed manual. I put it onto my iPhone…too small…so, I alt+tab between C6 and the adobe reader–but, it’s not the same as being able to sit with the manual spread out in front of me and learn.
I wonder how much it would cost me to get it printed and bound at the local office superstore?
I have the v4 manual (what I upgrade from)–dog eared and well worn. If there had been an option to add $30 to the cost of the upgrade and get a nice glossy manual, I for one, would’ve chosen that.
I really like the “workflow” of thinking I need to learn to do X…retiring to the comfy studio couch with manual in hand to read the details and options about what I need to do next. I guess an iPad would be sort of OK…but, I’m not buying a $500 thing to replace the $20-30 paper book they thought they’d skimp on.
I support Steinberg’s decision to do away with printed guidebooks. I’m sure it saves money, resources, lowers our cost, etc.
However, maybe it’s because I’m “of a certain age” - but I really miss the paper operation manual. I can’t read text for long periods of times comfortably from a screen (even iPads) - it causes too much eyestrain. Plus, I like the simplicity of paper. And hey, it saves electricity!
Anyway, I would pay up to $30-$40 dollars for one, if Steinberg offered that option. But since Steinberg allows user-printing of the PDF, does anyone know of an online document printing service that does one-off bound books via uploaded PDF files? You know, you upload your PDF file and they ship you a bound paperback book version in a week. Some place like this one:
I requested a quick estimate from the site above (assuming 700 double-sided pages b/w), and the cost comes out to about $35 a copy (paper bound, similar to how the Cubase 4 manual shipped). The problem, though, is they require you to order multiple copies. Obviously, one of us could take the plunge and order a bunch of these and then resell them. But that seems overly complicated (and possibly not cool with Steinberg).
I wonder if Steinberg could partner with a service like this and start offering print manuals again to the users that wants one. Since it would be outsourced, it wouldn’t require any effort on Steinberg’s part once set-up.
People learn different ways. Some are new to Cubase and haven’t had the pleasure of reading a manual all the way through, as was possible for owners of past editions … and something I initially found very helpful. Books do not require other technologies or batteries … and I still enjoy to curl up on the sofa on occasion and refresh myself on some topic I’ve yet to master.
People printing the manual out at home or at a shop will invariably have larger environmental footprints per unit than a single unit paper manual published by Steinbery viz. economies of scale.
The reasonable alternative would still be to offer the printed manual for a reasonable fee.
iPads, smart phones and eReaders all have environmental footprints as well, but their remanants … unlike trees, which grow back … will continue to pollute the environment indefinately, or maybe you never looked at the process by which chips are produced and what they and other ‘componets’ contain?
Just as no one gets ‘out of these Blues alive,’ there in no human endeavor without environmental impact. People just react to the possibly apparent ones, while the insidiuous ones wait to bite some future generation on the butt.
If you want to avoid an environmental impact, give up your computer, electricity use and dreamed sales to all those masses consuming batteries on their personal listening devices.
Too radical?
Thought so.
Regardless, given the relative low cost of file conversion and it’s one time production, there is no reason Steinberg (and others) couldn’t have download archive for multiple formats of popular readable files. But make sure you’re not on dial up or dsl! Think of all the electricity you are frivolously wasting waiting for that download.
I go through the pdf files and figure out which page ranges I want to have in printed form (basically, I skip the score editor and plugin manuals… figure I’ll look at those on the computer if/when I need them). Then I take the files to a local kinkos and have them printed front/back per page, add a plastic sheet on the front and back, and have the bunch spiral bound (well, actually, I split it in two since I’d prefer that over one unwieldy over-thick manual).
It’s not cheap (50 dollars maybe?), but frankly I prefer the spiral binding for manuals. So much easier to open to some specific page and lay flat.
I miss the printed manual too and think it’s sad and careless for Cubase not to include one on a $500 product. There is simply no excuse. I can understand not including one on the cheaper versions as it’s one more reason to buy the full version. I originally thought there was one looking at the comparison sheet but skimmed over too quickly and didn’t realize it’s a quick start guide. In my opinion that guide is a waste and could easily remain a PDF file. Sure it’s helpful to new users, but I would guess the large majority of Cubase 6 owners are experienced with Cubase already so that manual is useless to those owners.
I agree with Como 100% about the environmental impact. Those that claim it’s good because it’s saving trees are simply not taking into account the facts and are just patting themselves on the back for thinking they are saving the environment. E-Readers consume resources to produce, ship, power, etc. With all the electricity you are using reading these books I seriously doubt the earth is much better off. Then on top of that you likely will own several E-Readers in your life (upgraded models and such) so you effectively further diminish any perceived environmental benefit.
I like reading printed manuals on the bus and train to work. So far I’ve been making do reading the PDF on my Droid 2, even on a small screen I can read it clearly. But the way I read has changed. Now I just read what I want to know and skip everything else. As a result I’m probably missing plenty of cool features, but even on my computer I simply can not sit and read on the screen for hours like I can with paper. Basically I’ve been doing like Glittle said below, just without the printing. I eventually will have to do some printing if I want to learn all there is about the software. Like he mentioned though, the good thing to do is completely skip the irrelevant parts for one’s workflow. I too would never use scoring for example - but that could change lol.
I’m also voting with Como. I write notes in the margins to clarify procedures. Its really frustrating that a $30 manual has become too much of a revenue hit to be tolerated. So I bind my own. Just like in the olden days.