Physical Manual and Essentials Guides
Punch
Newcomer
Hi, new to the forums and all of this!
I picked up the Humble Bundle recently and plan to grab a few extra add-on items in order to start building maps and such with my son. We're both avid readers but really, really prefer physical copies to reading on digital devices. As nice as tablets and e-readers are, they just don't do it for us.
I couldn't find anything directly on the ProFantasy website for physical books, so can anyone here guide me to where I might find them?
Thanks!
Comments
There are no physical guides anymore. ProFantasy stopped making physical version of their products many years ago. Your only option is to print them yourself or take them to a print shop.
Unfortunately, owing to cost of production combined with the tendency for such things to be regularly updated and render physical copies out of date in a matter of months, I don't think PF do printed copies any more (though I might be wrong).
The only thing to do if you really must read on paper is to print these things out yourself. But be aware that updates are not done on nice convenient update sheets. Things are just generally updated, so eventually you will have to print the whole thing out again.
Thanks for the quick answer!
And here is another perfect example of how Remy and I quite often 'ninja' each other in responding to questions ?
Although it's not as good as having it as a printed book, the Tome of Ultimate Mapping - which I think was included in the bundle - is well worth looking though. Each subsection has it's own set of tutorials, for example the CC3+ section starts with a "Basic Overland Map" tutorial, and then has extra tutorials for many CC3+ functions. The DD3 section starts with a "Basic Dungeon Map" tutorial and then expands from there, and so on for CD3, Perspectives 3, etc.
The blog section of this website has loads of amazing tutorials, often linked to a YouTube video or an example map. https://rpgmaps.profantasy.com/tag/tutorial/
Ralf's blog entry from the start of the year is a great one to start with:
Sue's tutorials are always brilliant, as well explaining advanced features she includes a link to a copy of the example map from the article, so you can always download the FCW file and see for yourself how the magic worked:
And Remy has very insightful articles about various functions of CC3, many of which long-term users had never even seen before he pointed them out - like his Command of the Week series from these forums:
Many of the tutorials are very concise - much more than my rambling here - and colourful, and so they are a pleasant read electronically, and have the advantage of displaying on-screen exactly what you'll see in the software.
From my trials and tribbleations of going through this process. As a point of reference, I also prefer actual paper books. I love the look, the feel, and even the smell of good, well taken care of books. I love holding them in my hands, turning actual pages, writing notes in them, and marking them with 'stickies' of various colors. However, I'm also an engineer, and the practicality of holding 1500 books in your hand eventually won me over - especially when technical books can weigh in at pounds. Can become problematic to carry around in your backpack to and from work, or if you go on a walkabout, or.. Driveabout.
If you decide to print them, they can get massive. Have them hole punch it and put it into D-ring binders. This way, you can take out just a section as you're working through things and put it into a much smaller binder that's easier to manouver.
If you decide to stay the electronic route, I found that a tablet and PDF (and the PNGs of examples) is much better than e-reader and PDF. Even though my e-reader gets a lot of use otherwise. In addition, an internet-attached tablet can be used for those examples as given above AND the YouTube videos which are also worth your time to check out.
I took the PDFs of the manual and the overland maps section of the Tome to a local printer and had them printed and wire-bound. It wasn't expensive and the books are more functional for me than the typical paperback manual.
@Barliman did something similar, but have now found I prefer the PDF version
On my laptop I frequently find myself mapping in one window while referring to the Tome in another. Also clicking "
Add Ons" on the "Tools" menu can let you see documentation for anything you have installed.Thank you all for the wonderful responses!
I'll likely do a local print job and get them setup in 3-ring binders so I can insert my own blank pages for notes and the like while my son seems totally fine with using the second monitor for the PDFs.