I’ve tried a number of ways of printing out the Xojo documentation but, as yet, I haven’t found one that’s satisfactory. I’m accustomed to printing out documentation in a double-sided (duplex) format but that doesn’t look so good with the Xojo documentation. What’s the best way of doing it?
Martin
Give the PDFs to a shop where they have Xerox machines and do that sort of job.
Sorry, I do not know the name of the shop (the kind of names, even in French).
If you have an iPad, we do have a version specifically for it.
In the U.S., FedEx/Kinkos, Staples or other similar places can do a landscape coil binding that looks like it would work well with the Xojo PDF docs.
The landscape layout with 2 pages on each side is useless for printing. Also for printing you need a table of content but that’s not available nor an index table. Also splitting the usermanual in 4 parts doesn’t make the information more accessible and gives 4 times the ‘manual’ “About how to use this userguide and the conventions used”.
I wasted a box of paper, a number of coilbinders and a lot of toner experimenting to get a useable printout but ditched it all in the trashbin.
The landscape layout is a burden to use next to the IDE and is only usable on a larger tablet otherwise the text is too small. You miss then also the possibility to copy any code from it to the IDE. Splitting it in to 4 parts fragments the information and make searches much more difficult.
IMO this layout is a totally wrong design.
I totally agree and I’m glad you said that because I was beginning to think it was me that didn’t have my printer set up correctly. I’ve tried numerous combinations of printer settings and layouts but all I’m doing is wasting paper and ink. As a paying customer, I’ll be complaining to Xojo Inc. about this.
Martin
Nope, no iPad here.
All I want to do is to print out the documentation in a sensible readable format and then sit down and read it. Simple, huh?
Martin
As my licence has expired, I cannot raise a support ticket, so if anyone from Xojo Inc. is following this topic, please take note of what Andre Kuiper said and my response to his post. All I’m asking for is a layout which can be printed out in a sensible readable format such as in the RealStudio 2010 r1 (February 2010) PDF documentation, which I still have a copy of.
Martin
I do not understand the trouble (I do not printed the documentation since REALbasic version 1 *).
What are you ‘complaining’ about ?
Landswape vs Portrait ?
Size of text ?
Colors ?
On the other hand, the documentation s very nice looking.
My issue is with the layout of the printed documentation. If I place a book on my desk and open it, I wouldn’t expect to have to rotate it clockwise through ninety degrees to be able to read it and neither would I expect to see two columns of text on each page. That’s exactly what I have to do and see with the Xojo “Books”. If you don’t understand what I mean, try printing out “QuickStartDesktop.pdf” (you’ll only waste nine sheets of paper) but your printer will need to be capable of printing on both sides of the paper. Once printed out, you’ll then need to figure out how to bind the “Book”.
Martin
I’m not really sure what you are expecting. The Xojo User Guide and related guides are designed in iBooks Author for electronic reading. This works quite well on iPads and now in OS X Mavericks using the new iBooks app.
The PDF output is also quite readable on nearly any other device. Plus it can also be printed (something not possible at all with the old wiki-based User Guide), but you cannot force the PDF to be a traditional portrait book format since it is not designed that way.
If you want to print the PDF, you simply print each page and then bind it at the top so that you can view it in landscape format. Again, FedEx/Kinkos, Staples or other places will do that for you (they call it a “manual” I believe) with a variety of binding types.
Of course, like Xojo, the docs are updated quarterly. Printing them for each release will quickly get rather expensive. FedEx estimates about $30 per User Guide book (in black and white using coil binding with covers).
Creating an additional version of the User Guide that could be published in a traditional book format would be a tremendous amount of work and considering the direction the book industry is heading, I doubt it is worth the effort.
I have personally “Lived” inside of the Real Studio / Xojo Documentation for the last 7 months and I have NEVER had any problems. I also use the IBooks versions for my Ipad and they work well also.
Martin, Paul,
for once, I am really happy for my post:
Martin answer was clear (he have a problem)
Paul answer is crystal clear.
Martin:
The PDF manuals appears “Landscape” (normal view) on my screen: no need to rotate it (with Preview on OS X Maverick and prior versions / same with Adobe Reader.
To print it, you may have to check the Printer Settings (set it to Landscape, maybe), but this is always the case (check the printing orientation / Print one page in doubt) when you want to print something you do not create (and even then, better check).
Is it clear now with Paul answer ?
Yes, it’s perfectly clear, the “Books” have not been designed in the traditional portrait format, which is fine if you don’t want to print out the “Books”. I do want to print out the “Books” and I don’t have a problem printing them now but I’m certainly not prepared to pay someone to bind them for me. I conclude that the design is flawed, which is a great shame, as the content of the “Books” is absolutely top class.
Martin
Martin:
Do you know the alternate printing way: Landscape ?
When you ask Page Layout (in the File menu), you have two icons: one that shows a Portrait, the second a Landscape: it is the way the paper will be printed on.
It is a long time since I printed the last time / but I have (two) a printer. I do not recall what have to be done (I feel you have to set the Printing View to Landscape if the document presentation is Landscape).
You only have to print one page with the landscape set (Print page 1 to page 1) and if this is OK, newt print will be from 2 to
(last page).
I am sorry not been able to make a better ‘instruction block’: I’m not Canadian, but French and my english skill is low to explain that.
So, either make another printing try and report / stop crying because you are wrong: Landscape layout can be print at home using a family printer.
The suggestion I made that Paul really explains makes you see that you are wrong; you can do it by yourself.
Ah, if only the Books were using a heart croped paper layout, I will understand you. But it is not the case.
I cannot talk about Windows printings (I do not have Windows handly right now), but the book size (36,13 × 26,39 cm) can be shrinked to A4 size at Print time. An option exists in the Page Layout / Print process.
I really do not understand your concern. Excepted if you hate landscape format.
If your trouble is in a way to collate the sheets of paper to make it looks like a book, go to a paper mill shop and buy the ‘book doer system’ you like. Once again, I do not know the english words for these things. Look at Paul image, there exists ways to collate sheets of paper together.
Glad to hear that!
Just because the design is not what you want, does not make it flawed. We try to make decisions that will benefit most of our current and future customers.
The old User Guide could not be printed at all, so this is already a tremendous improvement for the few that would like to print it.
Personally, I’d love to have a portrait version of the User Guide that is available to purchase using print-on-demand (with Lulu or something similar). I’d also like an online HTML version. But that’s not possible now using iBooks Author; maybe it will become a possibility as both the User Guide and book publishing software in general matures. Speaking of which, I am looking at Scrivener, but even if I think it will work for what we need, migrating everything from iBooks Author would be a ton of work, not to mention the additional overhead of generating all these different output formats. After all, the docs (User Guide, QuickStarts, Tutorials, Upgrade Guide) are a total of:
All of which gets updated in some manner with each quarterly release of Xojo. This is all manageable using iBooks Author, which makes its choice good for everyone right now.
Note that this does not cover the wiki and Language Reference, which has 2,400 pages (viewed over 9 million times) and needs some love, too. 
I agree too
[quote=42453:@Paul Lefebvre] Martin Foster I conclude that the design is flawed
Just because the design is not what you want, does not make it flawed. We try to make decisions that will benefit most of our current and future customers.[/quote]
It IS flawed because it’s a piece of cake to convert a single page portrait format into a dual page landscape format (=supported by almost any printerdriver), but the way back is close to impossible, it WAS and IS the wrong choice.
Please, PLEASE, PLEASE don’t make that the same format!!!
No, the Language Reference is staying in wiki format. But it needs quite a lot of updates to the content.
[quote=42030:@Paul Lefebvre]I’m not really sure what you are expecting. The Xojo User Guide and related guides are designed in iBooks Author for electronic reading. This works quite well on iPads and now in OS X Mavericks using the new iBooks app.
The PDF output is also quite readable on nearly any other device. Plus it can also be printed (something not possible at all with the old wiki-based User Guide), but you cannot force the PDF to be a traditional portrait book format since it is not designed that way.[/quote]
Unfortunately is a PITA on my Nexus 7" tablet, even with 3rd party pdf readers. I’ve just given up on that. I lost my iPad to the little ones and this was a cheaper alternative. Too much scrolling for my taste and weakening eyes 
The quality of the content is outstanding. I refer to it a lot as I still fumble with FolderItems! but I don’t always have access to a dual monitor environment.
I’ve read plenty of tech manuals in either ePub or KIndle format that just work well. Just my 2c.
I note you said “most” but what puzzles me is how you came to the conclusion that the current documentation layout will be of benefit to that group of customers. Perhaps there was some consultation process or perhaps a survey was conducted or maybe your decisions were based on assumption. I realise that the current trend is towards electronic books but there are probably lots of users out there who much prefer to read printed documentation in Portrait format. You should note well what Andre Kuiper said: it’s a piece of cake to convert a single page portrait format into a dual page landscape format (=supported by almost any printerdriver), but the way back is close to impossible.
I keep looking back at the old RealStudio PDF documentation (circa 2010) and I can print that out in a multitude of different formats - Deep Joy!
Martin