Where are the current PDF download manuals for Adobe Elements 2021

[LemonPeeler]

The latest download PDF manuals for Adobe Elements Organizer, Photoshop Elements, and Premiere Elements appears to be an old link to 2018 manuals.  Where do we find a current link to the Adobe Elements 2021 Bundled programs?

[MichelBParis]

The pdf manuals have not been updated since 2018.

[Walter_H]

Michel,

FYI, I have PDF copies of the PSE 2020 manuals for the Editor and Organizer. They are both dated 11/5/2019. The Editor manual is 394 pages and the Organizer manual is 182 pages. If anyone wants a copy, I'd be happy to put them on my OneDrive for download.

[Jeff Arola]

The newest ones i can find dated 11/5/2019 for photoshop elements 2020.

Photoshop Elements Editor:

https://helpx.adobe.com/content/dam/help/en/pdf/photoshop-elements_reference.pdf

Photoshop Elements Organizer:

https://helpx.adobe.com/content/dam/help/en/pdf/elements-organizer_reference.pdf

From what i can gather Adobe is just not interested in providing pdf manuals any longer.

It's a shame since the online help is is not user friendly at all, i.e. it's much faster just to google

than try top find the answer in the online help and that applies to all Adobe products, not just photoshop elements.

[LemonPeeler]

[ It's a shame since the online help is is not user friendly at all, i.e. it's much faster just to google

than try top find the answer in the online help and that applies to all Adobe products, not just photoshop elements. ]

So true!  Part of the problem is that the online manuals are NOT searchable.  The only search field for an online manual is the general field at the top of the page for the User Guide and it only searches the entire support website.  The results are generally useless, even if you include the name of the application in the search.  In this day and age, we can't imagine that there isn't a program developers utility that could quickly convert their online manual to a PDF for download.  They could have at least provided a search engine that could search the content of a specific application manual.  Their cost cuts are costing us!

[Phil Pickering]

And the Premiere Elements Editor if you want the full set 🙂

Adobe Premiere Elements (PDF)

[seniornewbie]

As of dec 2022 a chat tech sent me a link to your above referenced manual. It is pretty comprehensive and searchable. Much better than their other guides and tutorials. But It’s still not an an easy read because it has tons of details about any subject relating to elements. If you want the answer to one particular question you may have to read multiple pages. But I’m glad  to have it.  

[LemonPeeler]

Amen to your observations!  It is extremely frustrating when something as simple as a proficient SEARCH feature for a specific product is missing.  Just the fact we have to specify the product name for every little search to get a half-decent and possibly useless result, renders the help useless.  Such frustrations are counter-productive to customer loyalty.  Adobe has a great product, hopefully they will eventually provide equally great help for a fairly complex program.

[John Waller]

hopefully they will eventually provide equally great help for a fairly complex program.

They used to provide detailed PDFs with boxed DVD software in the heady days of useful Help docs. That was many years ago. I can only assume that those PDFs were very expensive to produce, were rapidly outdated when new and improved features were introduced and few people referred to them.

Since we've gone to the Cloud and SaaS, useful help has disappeared. The online Adobe guides are useless for me.I find that Google searches are far more useful and quicker.

[Glenn 8675309]

I forgot about those, a great pair of references!

[nrezmerski]

I was thinking of writing “Unofficial Manuals” for Adobe CC products. Do you think there's a market for such books? What would you like to see in them?

[MichelBParis · Accepted solution]

It's a shame since the online help is is not user friendly at all, i.e. it's much faster just to google

than try top find the answer in the online help and that applies to all Adobe products, not just photoshop elements.

Yes, those pdf manuals should be available any time with a few clicks when you are edting or organizing. They require a lot of work from Adobe, but I think the present state of customer support is not only based on cutting costs, it's also based on a belief that online help is better. That may be true for the ease of details updating, but the sad reality is that the belief that AI can be used successfully to guide searches simply does not work.

Today, you are always better off using any search engine like Google than Adobe.

Finding help or learning about a feature from the hierarchical structure of the online help is totally inadequate.

So, what could Adobe software users do?

- complain heavily for the lack of pdf docs.

- download today the last existing versions while they are available. (Note: the links do download the pdfs directly without warning, at least for me). Save the links and create shortcuts.

- learn to use Google or similar search. Including 'Helpx' in the search box makes you search in the Adobe help docs.

- Sorry to mention that the Welcome part of Elements has the best of Adobe search. Bypassing it from a shortcut to save a minute to start an editing session is missing a good opportunity.

- Use the shortcuts often included in the menus for contextual help

What Adobe should do:

- Make more links directly available in the 'Help' menus.

- Prompt users to download the manuals at the end of the install process

- Make the text search line in the Welcome screen available from the F1 key; it's about the only 'AI' Adobe help useful feature.

- Add more links for contextual help in the menus.

- Work to make AI be more useful in the user to user forums;  I mean the suggested similar discussions listed on the right of this forum.

[LemonPeeler]

Thank you so much for the thoughtful reply.  It is hard to believe that such a mainstream application doesn't have an effective help manual.  As many have stated, a simple Google search is more helpful than the  integrated help.  This is almost inexcusable for a complex product like these.  At very least, they could provide a search feature for each product that would constrain the search to the online manual for that product!  We hope they give ear to your suggestions.

[John Waller]

>>>It is hard to believe that such a mainstream application doesn't have an effective help manual.

I'm finding that's the norm rather than the exception across the board for most apps I use: Adobe, Microsoft and many others.

While major software vendors do have learning channels and resources, I find they are aimed at novices and they are hard to search for specific queries. I rarely find what I need there. I can quickly google most of the answers I need. I often find great solutions on some random blog. I suspect the big software companies rely on regular users googling their own solutions.

[seniornewbie]

all suggestions are very helpful. I do have to report that maybe Ive been lucky but I have found that the AI called chat gpt has been very helpful and responive to the questions Ive asked about elements(2022) . For the last year Ive not spent alot of time on this hobby of mine (for personal reasons) however, I can ask a very specific question about how to do something when I am stuck and it answers it specifically. Im not sure but maybe its not as good for complex issues but so far its my new go to guide. 

[Glenn 8675309]

I actualy started making my own user friendly help manual.... designed for new users.   Lots of pictures, answers lots of the basic  quiestions new users have.   I used PSE 2020 to start it with. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/320x7zt5rz670br/ch1%20and%20ch2%20%20an%20ch3%20.pdf?dl=0

Below is one of the pages from the "manual"--- alot of the last bunch of pages are blank- and the table of contents is not completly updated.

The users is this group could easilly "crowdsource" our own, user freindly manual.   The adobe help stuff is pretty dry.

[Borcht]

Dear Glenn,

I just purchased "Adobe Photoshop Elements 2021" and have a need for a user manual.

Would you allow me to download your Manual?
If so, can you please let me know how to do this.

At my age (86) I do have practical problems with the growing complexity of, in this case finding a simple user manual  for Elements. 

Thanks for reply and your help!

Harry Briels

Keerbergen, Belgium

[Glenn 8675309]

Be my guest, it's in my drop box, I think you will like it!

[Glenn 8675309]

Here'sthe link to the fb page I made for the daily challenges... I don't montior it much, I used it jsut to "Park" the challenges in one place poeple could find......

Adobe Photoshop Elements Daily Challenge & Daily Cup of Knowledge | Facebook

[Borcht]

Glenn:

Sorry but I have no idea how to get to a "drop box"?

Can't you please mail me the file I need to click to open en then safe your manual?

My e-mail<email address removed>

Thanks for your help!

Harry

[John Waller]

Just click the Dropbox link in Glenn's post above and you can access the PDF file.

Here's the link again. Just click it.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/320x7zt5rz670br/ch1%20and%20ch2%20%20an%20ch3%20.pdf?dl=0

[defaulttat8784h1ody]

Hi. I get a message that the file has been deleted from dropbox. Would you please restore it? Thanks!

[Glenn 8675309]

I deleted everything a couple of days ago to clean it up- it's back.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/320x7zt5rz670br/ch1%20and%20ch2%20%20an%20ch3%20.pdf?dl=0

[LemonPeeler]

Thank you so much for posting this, Glenn, you have done a beautiful job!  My only question is regarding why the latest link above brings up a "Rough Draft" whereas the first link in this thread does not.  Which link is the best for downloading your most current manual?

[Glenn 8675309]

The one I just uploaded.