A long while back I relied on a service that let me upload my bought PDFs. They'd do a hardcover or soft, run the print job in different paper types, sizes, b/w interior, color, etc.

I've been out of the loop for a while, though. Now, I am searching and not finding such services (well, there's CreateSpace, which does a terrible job vetting my digital management rights, basically rejecting my inputs; there's Lulu, but I haven't tried)

Basically, I sometimes can't find a good physical copy (e.g., Ghosts of Albion, I finally grabbed it in PDF form, then had it made into a book and the job was great). To note, that was a job I did way before DTRPG had their POD option and before Eden Studios set it up).

Anyone use a service they are happy with?

I haven't ever gone for anything fancy, I just do b&w coilbound printing, but Lulu has done decent work with that as has Printme1.com.

Lulu gives you a lot more options, and so far they have not griped about anything I sent.

I wish I knew one that worked for me. Lulu has really made it hard to just upload a pdf and then print it out. At least that's how I recall it working a few years ago.

I am doing a test run with Lulu. It seemed to work fine. 225 page hardcover at 8.5x11, with a cover from their basic layouts. I will see if it worked out once print snd shipment proceeds.

Anytime I try to get Lulu to print my PDFs I get an error and they won't render after the upload stage.

Quote from: Imaginos on December 14, 2020, 01:24:10 PM
Anytime I try to get Lulu to print my PDFs I get an error and they won't render after the upload stage.

Odd... I just did it without any hiccups. I had to make a slight adjustment to the file, though. My first "basic attempt" was a file that was inclusive of a cover pic (color) with the b/w interior. I received some weird errors about pagination styles being "mixed."

So, I opened my file in Chrome, then hit print, then went to the dialog method. Once in there, I chose to print pp. 2-224, so the cover was not included, and I did the PDF > Save as PDF menu option. This built a pdf for me that rendered in the upload to an acceptable file.

I'll give that a shot next time.

Lulu was great before they "upgraded" their website.  Prior to the upgrade, I would often make custom books from PDFs.  After the upgrade though, I can no longer create a custom cover for these projects, outside of their pre-made cover templates.

See the attached image.  The Basic Fantasy book was done years ago, when Lulu allowed me to upload that full cover image.  The Barrowmaze book I just did recently on Lulu, but I couldn't use a full image - it made me use their templates.  It still looks nice, but I miss the freedom of using a full image.

I'm probably just doing something wrong when I try to create a new project, but like I said, I've done this several times in the past on the old Lulu site, and things are more difficult now.

Yes, I tried an image-based cover approach. I figured out what is going on. They want an image that is a pdf that has dimensions that over for both parts of the cover. For example, if you build an 8.5 x 11 book, they want the image that would be approximately 17 x 11 (though there is some wiggle room in their specifications; I guess that they bleed or cut the edges based on where the book cover sits "under" the image). I messed around a little trying to create such a cover, but my Adobe is "reader" (I rely on a friend for pro- and InDesign junk, just too much money for what I occasionally would do).