Need Help with Printing PS1 Manuals

[parasiteadam]

Hello. Not really sure if I'm allowed to post a topic like this since I couldn't find a rule against it but I need help concerning PS1 manuals. I have a few games that never had their manuals and have tried to buy them without any luck. If anyone has had any experience printing them themselves I do have the pdfs for them and could really use the help printing them. Note they are not for games I am intending to sell. A few of them are mostly getting presentable for sentimental reasons.

[tripredacus]

Edited topic title for clarity.

[sworddude]

Just give up your dream and deal with it. Sell the game and get a complete one or just let it be.

Depending on the sort of quality you want my guess is that you will come out pretty expensive when printing manuals manually. Some games have quite some pages aside from that it will probably not look like the original. Printing it proffesionally unless done in great quantities will be expensive.

Not worth it maybe if you have an expensive game but the value will stay the same regardless. Your just wasting your money.

[badATchaos]

Just go the Blockbuster route and just photocopy them. Then wait for an impending copyright infringement suit.
trolol

[desocietas]

   So many negative responses, folks. It was a reasonable request, imo.

I haven't tried to print a booklet myself and taking it to a business to have them print it for you might not work since they would probably identify it as something that they might get in trouble for (copyrights and such).

What booklets were you looking for? Maybe you can post it in the "looking for" thread to see if anyone can help you track a copy down.

Otherwise, if you have a decent printer at home, you can probably print the pages double-sided, but you might need to do some extra work of figuring out which pages would have to go together for it to be stapled together in the right order.

[gf78]

I've looked into this before and can tell you that if you do find a printing place willing to make the booklets for you, they will be both inferior to the original and cost prohibitive. 

If you just want to make a nice "face" for your game, I've used OfficeMax to print color laser copies of the front covers.  Again, it's not as nice as the original but it does the job.

If you truly want a full booklet, you are best off to keep your eyes out.  Make a post on this site in the marketplace and list what manuals you need.  Check local mom & pop gaming shops to see if they have any manuals laying around.  Or bite the bullet if the game has a lot of sentimental value to you and get a complete copy.  A lot of collector's have various "pieces" of games they will part with.  I have probably 50+ booklets and cover art for various games across various platforms.  Many others here do as well.  Make the list and you might get a bit of help.  I sent a user here the cover art and manual for an Advance Wars DS game that I just happened to find at a used game shop.  Made his day and made me feel good to help a fellow collector out.

[tripredacus]

I've looked into this before and can tell you that if you do find a printing place willing to make the booklets for you, they will be both inferior to the original and cost prohibitive. 

Also be aware that some places will refuse to print reproductions of copyrighted materials.

[Warmsignal]

It's not too tough, but much easier if you just print the cover pages. Get a photo printer and I'd always recommend a wide format, it will open up more possibilities for you. What matters more than your printer nowadays, is the quality of the image. Ideally, you'd want like a 600dpi scan. Glossy paper works fine for a manual, something like 6.5 mil should be fine. I usually convert any PDF scans to JPG which can be done easy if you Google it, there are some free services. PSX Data Center should have just about anything you'd ever need.

Use good photo editing software like Photoshop, there are alternatives (even free ones) that work just as well. Sometimes you may need to do some adjusting or sharpening of text which you'll find built-in tools for. Sometimes full retyping is necessary in some places. For a standard jewel case book (two pages per side) your image size should be 9.4 x 4.72 length by width in inches. You can make this adjustment easily in your editing software, then make sure in print properties you're printing 100% of actual size, on your best quality settings.

The tricky part is putting pages in them. Unfortunately the thin kind of paper used for pages are among many specialty types only available directly from paper mills and most won't sell them to you unless you buy a lot of money's worth in a bulk purchase. So, I'd settle for just using plain paper for the inside pages. This way you can print on both sides of the sheet like you're supposed to (if you center your image in print settings). You'll need a 9.4 x 4.72 canvas and then just transplant them into place so that they flip in the correct order. For example, starting off with page 2 to the left of center and 14 to the right, and for the flip side of that sheet page 15 to the left and 1 to the right. Once you've folded your pages down the center, they should flip in order, on the back of 1 is 2, on the back of 14 is 15, and everything that goes in between. Measure the center of your prints, then score with a scoring pen before folding to get a nice crease. Finally, staple them all together.

Sounds complicated, but it's not bad.