Okay, this is bothering me because I'm a bit crinkly and I miss the good old days of chunky, beautifully written and illustrated PAPER manuals which used to come packaged with ALL games. Nowadays it's a case of either :

1. Learning a new game by simply playing it and trying to work out how the game works, how the interface works etc.
2. Sitting in front of your PC reading a manual written in .pdf format.
3. Getting a printer and printing the manual out.

Or maybe you have a portable device - an iPad or similar - and have been able to find game manuals online which you can read while lying in bed ?

How many gamers have actually got a printer I wonder ? How many people even read manuals any more ?

I'm thinking of investing in a laser printer purely to print out game manuals. Does anyone have any recommendations ? The more I research these things the more I am coming to the conclusion that they are a con : the amount you have to spend on inks / toner is sometimes astronomical - a fact well hidden by the manufacturers.

I'd be dead without my ink jet printer. I can't function without manuals and reference cards in front of me. And yes ink is WAY expensive but at least it's a tax writeoff.

If you're going to get a printer definitely get a laserjet. Does the name even make sense anyway? Inkjet I get. Jets of ink. Jets of lasers? Sounds cool, but in practice it doesn't make sense...

i have a printer but it's been gathering dust since the cartridge got emptied out. I can't refill it and buying a new one costs almost as much as the printer did, so I'm kind of done with all that. Screw printers.

The trouble with inkjet printers is that if you don't use them often - as would certainly be the case with me - the ink dries out and unless you know how to rectify this you have to keep replacing unused or part-used cartridges. That's why I'm favouring the idea of a laser printer.

Back in the days before digital games I loved just sitting down and reading/smelling a manual before actually playing it. I agree it's easier to read paper manuals than digital ones, especially those really long manuals. But all that printing could be costly in using a great deal of ink and paper.

People who have tablets probably can view the pdfs on those devices while they play a game to avoid window switching. That might be a middle compromise.

Last night I found a .pdf format manual of X-Com Apocalypse somewhere on the net (can't remember where exactly) and was reading it while in bed. This was much better than having to sit at my desktop, switching between the game and the manual. This is not an easy game to work out how to play without access to a manual. It would still be much better if I had a paper manual though.

I can identify with your nostalgia. Part of the ritual of buying a PC game for me used to be reading the manual beforehand - usually in bed the night before I intended to start the game. Manuals are inadequate and lazily written these days imo (another modern way of cutting costs I suppose). There are games which I've bought from GOG - Jagged Alliance 2 for example - which I will need the manual for and I'm not prepared to sit in front of my PC reading an Adobe Acrobat document, so a printer it will have to be.

Which usually cost a small fortune.

The only printer I've previously owned was an Epson inkjet and I had exactly this problem. At the moment I've got my eye on a couple of Dell colour laser-like printers (they are LED rather than laser actually but they use toner rather than ink, which is what I'm looking for). I'll be using compatible toners rather than the astronomically expensive Dell toners. Some printers are sneakily chipped, however, to prevent you from using compatibles, so I'd say beware ! to anyone considering buying a printer for whatever reason. Do your research in advance because this is looking more and more like a total rip-off industry to me ...

I have a printer, but never use it as I found through my years for magazines and my design to print work, its usually cheaper going to the printers than buying an ink cartridge!

If you let me know what area yer in (wales, yorkshire etc) i can maybe find a decent printer ive used before.
printerpeople.biz are generally good, but i dont know if theres a branch near you / what the mailing costs would be

I'm not bothering with digital manuals, at least not till I buy myself a nice tablet. I do have an inkjet printer, but ink costs quite a bit and I'm in no mood to create doorstoppers out of the manuals. I do like reading the manuals on my physical games though. I always found the manuals of the Wario games pretty amusing.

As for what printer, well a laserjet one would be good. We do have one HP in our workplace and it has lasted a long time without a replacement.

Thanks for the kind offer. I'm still only at the "considering buying" stage at the moment. The two Dells I've mentioned are the C1660W and the 1250C (now discontinued). Both can use compatible toner I believe. I've only looked on Amazon so far. I'm in Yorkshire as it happens. I will bump this thread or look out for you if I don't buy from elsewhere :)
Okay, so that's two votes for laserjet. I'm not sure what one of those is but cheers ! I've done a fair bit of research on this but there's quite a bit to take in.

Well, printerpeople.biz are cheap and efficient (they have a place in york). Quacks printers in york are by far the cheapest ive found for bulk B+W A4 prints - worked out cheaper than buying a block of paper for several hundred pages last I went and I'll checkup on some more. Gimme a shout if you buy a printer before youve heard further from me!

Okey dokey, I'll look printerpeople.biz up and bear your kind offer in mind. Amazon is my first port of call usually, because there are so many items and so many user reviews, but I needn't buy from there. I will probably need to find something to put it on before I go ahead anyway. I would like to be able to print out at least some of my GOG manuals. I'm thankful that I own the paper version of the Alpha Centauri manual : now that WOULD be costly to print out !