Why no PDF manual?

I really like to have printed material when teaching myself scripting. Is there a reason the manual isn't compiled to a PDF? I know not everyone needs a proper manual, online is fine for a quick lookup - but not so helpful for learning (for me anyways). I'd just print all the pages, but that's obnoxiously tedious and a waste of paper. If there is a a hidden compiled manual, do tell me where... I'd rather like to have it.

 

I had requested this a while back when I purchased Pro, the response I got made sense. They are constantly making tweaks to the manual and updating items. Its easier for them right now to just keep it as web pages than to put it all in a PDF document since what you might get today is possibly slightly changed tomorrow.

I love PDF's though.

 

That DOES make sense. And I get that, but they should set up their documentation system to be able to dump to a document or at least post something with the understanding that it will go out of date. Just periodic updates to the master manual not per se for every updated release. Most applications manage, some more complex than Unity. They could at least reorganize the manual online so that it could be printed easily from the web. It could fetch the entire manuals contents in one long "pinter" window page - or some such. I dunno. Just rambling, but it would be nice.

 

Personally, I own adobe professional, I attempted to mirror it and got about 70% done to a pdf then something corrupted. I don't know which page or what file it was on, but I can never get a clean copy. True they could use an application that not only allows them to do the web documentation but also print to a pdf, but I would rather them put the time into making the next release of the software than to put time into the manual for converting it. I think the programmers doing the programming are also the documentation folks, I don't get the feeling that they have a dedicated paper pusher on board.

 

As the official "Doc Master", I hear your request for a PDF version of the documentation. Indeed having a PDF version of all the documentation would be extremely useful for users.

There is a valid concern that a PDF version of the docs would become too quickly out of date, although there are some ways to minimize that problem. Certainly bringing me on board to manage and maintain the documentation is a great first step.

The biggest barrier that I can see between html docs and pdf docs is a technical one. The final documentation that you read is actually compiled from many sources, and it becomes several different pages. Some of these pages have a logical order, and some do not. It's arguable that some pages wouldn't even be useful when viewed on their own, without context.

Not to mention that there is integrated functionality between Unity/Unitron and the html docs. If you click a ? in the Inspector, you're taken to that particular Component Reference page. If you press cmd-' in Unitron, you are taken to the closest matching Scripting Reference page. I believe it's possible to recreate this functionality with PDF documentation, but how feasible is it? I'd honestly rather spend time making the docs better than making them "the same but different".

In the mean time if you are dying for printed pages, you can bulk-select the pages in

Applications->Unity->Documentation->Manual

and choose Print from the context menu. I know they'll print out of order, but you can order them according to their layout on this page: file:///Applications/Unity/Documentation/Manual/User%20Guide.html

Of course, please continue to share your thoughts because we are listening.

 

I'm certainly not suggesting you waste your time. But getting a proper system for managing the documentation in place now will save you lots of time in the long run. I don't think it HAS to be perfect. Just put a disclaimer on the front page and say it's suplimental to the online documentation that is the most accurate and up-to-date. Users just need to understand the nature of 'paper' manuals. Something may not be correct when dealing with an evolving product - that said I would still like to have *something*. I understand that some pages are weird out of context, and I'm certainly willing to accept that. I would just like a print formatted manual that doesn't waste a ton of extra paper with headings and whitespace.

 

If that's all that could be managed, sure. I'm not picky. Though I can't speak for everyone there.

 

As long as its a searchable PDF, it would be good enough.
PDF's offer so much power with linking, bookmarking, etc that I don't know why it wasn't started as a PDF to begin with. You can bookmark chapters, highlight sections so on, and commands could have links to examples.

A lumped together version could easily be searched.
The online manual is good and all, but having a copy on my PDA would allow me to do research and such while on business trips and have no other access to the material.

Thats just my 2 cents.