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FWIW, I hate trying to read .pdf files too. (I’m not alone!!!) I guess you could buy another print cartridge or two and “publish” it yourself using a few heavy duty staples. Hard to believe that $447.50 is an upgrade price. I never looked because I didn’t want to scare myself. I usually just upgrade Photoshop and DW, but not this year. Maybe after another doom of too many web orders.

I went through a frustrating software scenerio with Winfax Pro. I had paid to download it, then said, “what the hell” and paid extra for “download protection” in case I lost the file. Yeah, stupid me. After formatting my computer a few months ago and reinstalling the OS, the copy of Winfax Pro that I saved no longer would install. Something about I had already installed it on one computer, (the one I formatted). Went to my trusty download insurance and discovered I could no longer download it because the 6 months were up. Huh? I called Support and they offered to send me a cd. Yess!!! That was 3 months ago and I still haven’t received it. Another call to Support and they have no record of my call, and no, they can’t send a cd, I can only install it on one computer. And on and on. I think I only spent $89 or $109, not like you. “Only $89”. Unbelievable.

If they’re saving themselves money by no longer shipping heavy manuals, wouldn’t you think they’d lower their prices to compensate? There’s a happy thought.

I third the annoying ‘no manual’ style of software delivery. PDF’s don’t count.

If nothing else, make it an extra charge to guarantee me paper.

rturner: “Hard to believe that $447.50 is an upgrade price”

Well, that includes the delivery of the physical product. Which it turns out was essentially useless to me, and a waste of both time and money. I could have done the online download, burned my own CD’s, and put them in a hard case for less than the cost of shipping. Which is what I guess I’ll be doing in the future.

Then I guess I can buy a ream of paper and an inkset to print out the manual (the Studio MX manual is 380+ pages).

“If they’re saving themselves money by no longer shipping heavy manuals, wouldn’t you think they’d lower their prices to compensate?”

I paid for the shipping. I’d gladly pay for the paper cost of printing the manual. But do they even offer the option to soak me for another $14.95 to sell me a printed manual? No. That’s penny wise and pound foolish.

garret: “PDF’s don’t count.”

Macromedia gets bought by the company that makes Acrobat, and thus, PDF’s. I spend 400+ plus bucks, and get told to use the PDF as a manual.

Welcome to the paperless future. Paper everywhere you don’t want it, and nowhere you need it.

How about this. If you’re peddling this new future of waste saving paperless software deliveries, save yourself some money on the gargantuan boxes in which you place your tiny product … and invest it in providing a hard CD case.

Throw us a freakin’ bone, man.

Hi Reid, I’m sorry that your expectations weren’t met—seems like these should be set more clearly before an order, right? I’ll forward your essay here to my partners, so we can all see the actual effects.

For rationale, the number of manuals has massively increased over the past few years, while the audience for any particular manual seems to shrink… I’d guess you wouldn’t need the fast-start manuals, maybe not the extensibility manuals, but I’m not sure whether case-studies or tips or just menu explanation would be among your own first priorities. Putting them all in the box gets nuts. That’s the main reason why the number of manuals has increased, and they’ve gone electronic—here’s an overview to the ever-live, commentable LiveDocs resources across a range of tools:
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/

The flip side of that is that paper manuals may not be printed out into every box in anticipation they might be used, but have instead switched to mass-market bookstores for ready accessibility. Here’s a cross-section of some of the paper versions of these same free docs:
http://www.macromedia.com/support/mmpress/

You also noted the angle of the customer service call not being fulfilled—I don’t have access to that database and so can’t check who spoke with you, but something seems to need to be fixed there too.

Other staffers will likely be hitting your blog over the next few days… in light of the above background, what understanding would you like them to reach…?

tx, jd/adobe

You know, my wife told me yesterday after I got off the phone with customer support, “you’ve got to send them an email about that.” And I said, no, no I don’t. Email to customer support often goes into a black hole. Meanwhile, I know there are smart folks who have the good sense to do a Technorati search for their company and/or product name. And I knew from past experience that one of them was John Dowdell.

5 hours and 53 minutes from post to response. You’re getting slow, John.

The primary problem I had in this case was caused as much by my first encounter with customer support (which was on Tues, Jan. 24) as it was by the policy of not shipping manuals with the physical product. I would rather have been told the actual policy then (no manuals), and don’t understand how you can get two radically different answers from the same department. But, on the other hand, I’ve seen this same flaw in other campany’s support departments.

As for the issue of the manuals themselves … my advice is bold transparency, with copious options. State clearly on the order page that the manual is in digital form. If that had been the case when I ordered, I would have saved myself the shipping fee. Or do it by stating what is in the shipping package (“two CD’s including electronic manual”). Then, right below that, offer options for printed manuals … $14.95 for the main manual, $6.95 for Appendix A, etc.

I can see where not everybody wants everything, and it can therefore be wasteful to ship it all to everybody. But it shouldn’t be “all or nothing.” At the very least, you ought to have optional checkboxes for your existing publications.

But beyond that, there’s just something within me that says when I spend that much money on high end software with complex applications, there ought to be a black and white manual. And it was partially six or seven years of purchasing Macromedia products that created that expectation.

I don’t think I’m alone in that.

I can’t begin to know the logistical difficulties you face on this. All I know is that, as a customer, I’m willing to pay for the extra cost of paper, the ink, and the shipping. If you no longer think it makes sense in the large scale of logistics and costs to send manuals with every upgrade package, allow me to make a small scale decision if I’d like to pay for that option myself. Make it easy, and above all, make it clear.

Finally, if you’re going to leave everything as it is, you need to rehab your packaging and shipping process. There was no need for boxes that big (again, a waste of paper and ink), when the money could have been put into a smaller shipping box … containing a hard CD case. Yes, that minor point is a burr for me. If I give you $400 for software, at least give me a hard case to protect it. Put your fancy logo on that hard CD case instead of the manual-sized box, and you can reduce the size and weight of what you ship all the way around.

And, on top of all that, how can you tell people to go RTFM when there is no longer an M? RTFPDF? I’m sorry, it’s just not the same…

Got it, thanks… that point of “show exactly what I’m buying” seems inarguable, something that can be pushed internally. The Adobe & Macromedia stores aren’t yet fully integrated, but info on “what’s in the box? what else might I want?” sounds like the right thing to get into the next interface.

I’m sorry you were inconvenienced, Reid, but thanks for making this public… it helps in raising this issue in the priority stack. I’m not sure if/when results might appear, but the bad experience you suffered might now help others avoid the same hassle in the future, so… thanks!

jd

And thanks for your prompt response, John. It really does help to know that these things are heard and reviewed internally, and that was indeed the reason I posted this here.

Well, that, and the fact I have a history of this sort of thing…