I just called HP support to get my free printed User's Guide for the 35s. It was a very pleasant experience. Mike took my serial number and address and said I'd have it in 5-10 business days. Not surprisingly, he also asked where I bought it, how long ago, and would I give him my phone number and email address. Requesting this sort of marketing info seems to be standard practice among companies these days, and I give it (or not) depending on how I feel about the company. Naturally I gave HP all the info they requested :).

Nice job, HP.

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I just called HP support to get my free printed User's Guide for the 35s. It was a very pleasant experience.

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Huh. This struck me odd as I had called weeks ago to order
a manual and I was told they were gone with little hope of
ever again being available. Just called again and apparently
they had an unexpected shipment arrive yesterday, and since I
was already in the queue, my manual is already shipping today.
I could get used to customer service like this.

I had the same experience as uhmgawa some time back. No manuals and maybe I could obtain them from a third party.

With a plethora of small batch publishing houses available on the internet, I don't understand how they could say they were not likely to be getting more. If they needed more, and if they had promised them to their customers, then it's pretty poor service to not see to it that they are available. Unexpected shipment? I used to do purchasing at a small company. There is no such thing. Vendors don't just surprise you with product on your dock.

Did you ever work at a large company? Hand A following process B doesn't always mean Hand C using process D that was set up by Hand E four hands ago. . .

Just a thought.

TW

yep, been there done that. Very accurate process description, Tim...

Regardless of company size, and which Hands are using or setting up which processes, based on Mark's comments one of HP's processes is broken or the Hands are not following their processes.

Someone should be slapped. By a senior Hand.

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With a plethora of small batch publishing houses available on the internet, I don't understand how they could say they were not likely to be getting more. If they needed more, and if they had promised them to their customers, then it's pretty poor service to not see to it that they are available. Unexpected shipment? I used to do purchasing at a small company. There is no such thing. Vendors don't just surprise you with product on your dock.

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I didn't intend to suggest they were a surprise to corporate
HP. Rather they were an unexpected arrival to the customer
service individual who took my call. In my earlier conversation
I was told the gratis 35s manual program had run its course
of a few years and was apparently being discontinued.

I suppose if you're really in a bind and can't get a printed
manual from HP, sending the PDF they do provide to one of the
one-off internet book printers might be an option.

Doesn't the 35s come with a printed user's guide? For some reason I have one and don't remember ever having to call and order it.

It used to. However it does not any longer. I got a couple with the guide included but ordered another recently and the user's guide was not included. Also, the the zippered case has been replaced by one of a different design. I have not actually opened the package yet but it is clearly not the zippered case and the new design appears to be a cheaper offering (I know that some hated the zippered cases but I personally liked them). As far as manuals go the same appears to be true of all recent HP calcs. They have replaced the user's guide with a CD.

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I suppose if you're really in a bind and can't get a printed
manual from HP, sending the PDF they do provide to one of the
one-off internet book printers might be an option.

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hpcalc.org also has a few manuals available for very reasonable prices.

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I've used Staples in the past with great success. Most recently I printed a manual at home on 8.5 x 11 inch paper, 2 images per side. I had staples cut the paper in half, put a spiral binding on it, and add a clear vinyl cover to the front and a black vinyl cover to the back. Poof! Instant manual. Since I printed it myself, I think the total cost was at Staples was only about $10.

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Interesting. I picked up an inexpensive comb binder punch
for under $100 on EEEbay which does a better job than I'd
expected on general reference materials. But a spiral bound
half-letter sized footprint is far better for the reference
manuals discussed here. How square was the resulting stack?
I suppose what I'm asking is whether they just made a single
cut in half or were able to square the deck afterwards.

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hpcalc.org also has a few manuals available for very reasonable prices.

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I found someone selling HP calc manual reprints for $35 each
in half-letter size with a spiral binding. I couldn't help
be curious where the image data originated..

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Interesting. I picked up an inexpensive comb binder punch for under $100 on EEEbay which does a better job than I'd expected on general reference materials. But a spiral bound half-letter sized footprint is far better for the reference manuals discussed here.

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How square was the resulting stack? I suppose what I'm asking is whether they just made a single cut in half or were able to square the deck afterwards.

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Looking closely at the manual, I can tell that it was cut, but not because the overall length is off. Rather, the length is off on one end only, so I think the paper wasn't quite squared when it went into the cutter.

I bought my 35s at the end of October. I called HP about a week and a half ago to ask for the printed manual. The agent told me that the program had ended, but took my address and other data in case they got more manuals.

This morning there was a box on my doorstep containing the manual. Kudos to HP customer support.

Now, if I could get a printed manual for my 30b... :-)

Oh YES for the 30b, plus all the "Learning_Modules". :-)

Or, you can get a Kindle and read them using the Kindle's PDF reader. It is like looking at actual paper without all the "book weight."

Regards,

Mark

If only talking about the 30b manual and its learning modules, have you ever tried to make out what some of the "key" symbols are? Thank goodness for my 27 inch monitor and the ability to enlarge those PDF pages. :-P

The printed User's Guide arrived today via UPS. Yippee!

Dave