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Now in print[-on-demand]: Charles Matthews & Seong-June Kim,

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2018 10:27 pm
by Blank Paint
https://www.amazon.com/Shape-Up-Mr-Char ... s+shape+up



I'm happy to say that I was able to convince Mr. Charles Matthews to allow me to print his book "Shape Up!"using amazon's print on demand. The cost of the book is as low as it can go. I have made sure that no money is made because the PDF was free on-line and I thought it should stay as low as it can go. I have not received a copy of the book yet, but I hope it turns out good. I will let you all know once I revived a copy. It's a large format book 8.5" by 11", which I prefer myself.

I hope you take a look at it when you can.

I'm very grateful to Mr. Charles Matthews for allow me to do this project and I hope you all thank him as well. It's a nice gesture and an amazing gift.

Thanks everyone,

Kent

Re: NEW GO BOOK 2018

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2018 9:47 am
by Drew
Looking forward to your update once you've received a hard copy. Please also post some pictures.

Re: NEW GO BOOK 2018

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2018 7:39 pm
by Blank Paint
I will do that for you. Any other concerns you have let me know. Do you have John Fairbairn's book "Final Summit"? I will take a picture next to that one for sizing.

Re: NEW GO BOOK 2018

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2018 8:44 pm
by Bonobo
Thanks, ordered immediately … I have wished for a very long time to be able to read this in the bathtub :D

A book, a real book, how I love them.

Re: NEW GO BOOK 2018

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 9:09 pm
by Blank Paint
Here you go. I hope the photos help. If they don't work, it's just because I'm new to this system.

Cheers,

Kent

Re: NEW GO BOOK 2018

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 9:39 pm
by Blank Paint
Forgot to give you cover shot for size.

Re: NEW GO BOOK 2018

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 11:35 pm
by RobertJasiek
Oh, it is huge! Good printing quality. It is a shame that Yutopian did not print it many years ago.

Re: NEW GO BOOK 2018

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2018 7:52 pm
by Monadology
Received my copy today. Print quality is pretty poor/inconsistent, with many diagrams being somewhat faded and others (on the same page) being much clearer. It's definitely still readable nonetheless, so given the price, I can't complain much!

Re: NEW GO BOOK 2018

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2018 8:17 pm
by Blank Paint
Yeah, I agree. There are some words with letters not spaced correctly, but overall I do agree. For the price, I think it's worth it. I love the big pages, I find it easy to read.

Re: NEW GO BOOK 2018

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2018 7:39 am
by Drew
Monadology wrote:Received my copy today. Print quality is pretty poor/inconsistent, with many diagrams being somewhat faded and others (on the same page) being much clearer. It's definitely still readable nonetheless, so given the price, I can't complain much!
Sadly, this is par for the course for Amazon's print-on-demand service. Given the cost, however, it's probably still a good deal.

Re: NEW GO BOOK 2018

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2018 1:24 pm
by Bonobo
Might be a good idea to change the subject of the opening post to something more speaking? Like …

Now in print[-on-demand]: Charles Matthews & Seong-June Kim, “Shape Up!”

?

Re: NEW GO BOOK 2018

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2018 4:29 pm
by Blank Paint
Yes! Great idea! How can that be done?

Re: NEW GO BOOK 2018

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2018 4:56 pm
by Tryss
If you edit your first post, you should be able to change the title. By the way, try to avoid "all caps", it's unnecessarily "clickbait"

Re: Now in print[-on-demand]: Charles Matthews & Seong-June

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2018 6:21 pm
by Blank Paint
Thank-you for the suggestions and help. I'm sorry I used caps, when not needed. I won't do that again.

Re: Now in print[-on-demand]: Charles Matthews & Seong-June

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2018 11:50 am
by Bonobo
Got mine today :)

First impression:

Book format: (W*H) 216 mm * 280 mm / ~8.5" * ~11"
Type size for running text: ~13 pt

The diagrams, accordingly, are also quite large.
(You can see the relations if you look at the source document, the free PDF at http://cdn.online-go.com/shape_up.pdf)

—> I for one think I could have lived perfectly well with half the size: (W*H) 6.6" * ~8.6" / ~167 mm * 216 mm (better also for holding the book in one hand, which is almost impossible with the printed format)

Binding: glued, looks quite stable.

The problem re: thin lines in some diagrams has already been mentioned, it does make reading the diagrams harder, but for the little money I’m not going to complain—especially since it’s in the original PDF already.

What really irks me is the kerning of the sans-serif text passages.
(But again, not a complaint towards Blank Paint, given the price, see also below.)

Maybe there’s something wrong with the PDF already (sans-serif text in boxes is badly kerned there), maybe a not correctly or completely embedded font or something?
But while the bold sans-serif titles and headlines look well in the PDF (maybe they look good only on my computer b/c I have lots of fonts?), they are badly kerned in the printed book (a problem added by the Print-On-Demand System?)

(Sadly I don’t currently have the time, but I think … maybe it could/should be exported anew with correct font embedding or something, using Adobe Acrobat?)