I am close to completing my family genealogy book in RM Publisher. I would like to have several “old school” hard copy books to give to my children. Has anyone had experience with any vendors/companies that I can contact to create several hard copy books? Thanks.
I have zero experience, so take that into account when considering my suggestion.
I have been considering placing family history books for “old school” hard copy printing at Amazon. That way, I could order my own books from Amazon to give to my children and grandchildren, and other family members could order their own copies. Amazon prints such books “on demand” so there is no marginal cost for printed but unsold books.
I did look into this a little bit with a local printing company 10 or 15 years ago. A significant problem was a high start up cost to be amortized across a very small production run. And today, I have no idea how those costs for a small production run would be for a traditional printer vs. the “on demand” solution that Amazon offers. I have talked to people who have placed their own non-genealogy books at Amazon where the expected number of books that ever will be ordered and printed is quite small. The people I have talked to have been happy with their experience.
Thanks for your wisdom. I will check out Amazon.
If you can save the book as a PDF file, there are several companies that will print a small quantity in various formats for you. I use DoxZoo https://doxzoo.com/ for my PDF printing.
P.S. I am based in the UK.
I’m not really set up to edit PDF files. I suspect that most users are set up to view PDF files but not to edit them. So unless you are set up to edit PDF files, it’s hard to print PDF files created from RM unless you are able to use the files directly as they come out of RM. For me as a sample size of 1, I’m nearly always going to want to do at least a little editing before printing. I don’t know to what extent other RM users are able or willing print files directly out of RM without some editing.
On the other hand, I can use RM to save as a DOCX, I can use Microsoft Word to edit the file and save it back as an updated DOCX, and then I can use Microsoft Word to save the file a second time, this time as a PDF. So I can make an “edited PDF” RM without even having a PDF editor.
I have spent a lot of time “cleaning up” my RM book within RM. I know I could save as a .docx and edit like a word document, but then every time I make a change to my data base I would have to remember what changes I made to the .docx file and make those changes again. I think that would be really difficult to manage.
I will check out the recommendations to where to send my RM PDF file for printing.
Thank you.
There is no perfect solution to this problem. What I do is to do everything in my power to make the DOCX file produced by RM as nearly camera ready as possible. What that amounts to is that I try to make the content as camera ready as possible within RM itself. Then I use Microsoft Word only to clean up certain formatting issues that mostly can be done with a few global replaces. That way, I don’t really have to remember what changes I made to either RM or to the DOCX file.
I would repeat that my process is not perfect and that I don’t think there is a perfect method. I’ve posted a writeup on my method before and I’m getting close to posting one again. It’s a little different using Microsoft Word with the DOCX file produced by RM10 than it was using Microsoft Word with the RTF produced by RM7., but it’s a very similar process.
Like Steambuff I have also used Doxzoo and can recommend their printing service. You submit a PDF and tell them what you want online. They then do the rest. They’re based in the UK but will deliver to other countries too. They also accept payment in Euros or US$.