Is there no User Guide for Premiere Pro CS6?

Question

I am a FCP7 refugee trying to decide between Avid and PP CS6. After waiting for a few weeks for it to be available, I have been lookiig through the PP CS6 Help PDF. I was surprised to see that it is not a complete reference guide documenting the features of the application, but instead a mish-mash of short descriptions, with numerous links to videos, documents from earlier versions, and other external locations where one has to go to get the actual information--not very helpful as a guide to the application. Is there actually no comprehensive user guide from Adobe in a single document or PDF? Or is the only way to get information about the application to navigate through all these disjointed materials?
If there is such a user guide, I would very much like to know where I can find it. If there isn't, I would have to count this as a very big factor in favor of deciding to go with Avid. This is particularly true given the absence of any current third-party books on PPro CS6, although such books are hardly a substitute for a well written and comprehensive user guide, something which is also true of the help PDF.

Answer 1

Groppler wrote:
Since the links are to the on-line CS6 help and the PDF version of that help, both of which are a collection of materials concerning CS5, CS5.5 and CS6...
Yes, for CS6, new information was added to the CS5/CS5.5 documentation. We had to go this route because we are working with brand new documentation software. There simply was not enough time to integrate the software and complete a whole new set of documentation. Believe me, it was enough of a challenge integrating the old system with the new one--in addition to creating the articles for new features, and the connective tissue between them.
There is only one person that does the docs for Premiere Pro, and that is me. I have limitations and guidelines I must follow, so I hope you understand.
Groppler wrote:
...with links to external sources you have to go to for information, I guess the answer to my question is that there is no true user guide for Premiere Pro CS6 that one can go to for comprehensive information about the application...
No, this is the Help. It has BOTH the comprehensive details about the software and community content where you can see how people are actually using the software. If the Help is lacking details about any feature, please alert me and I will include those details. I work directly from the engineering documentation and include every detail I can about any feature.
Since my time is limited, I don't always have time to make supplemental materials like video tutorials, or articles. That's why I link to them. The crucial info is included in the docs, the community content is material that I personally approve as helpful and supportive to the documentation.
Groppler wrote:
...without sorting through irrelevant information or navigating to all these third-party sites to see if they have information you are looking for.
None of the community content is irrelevant. I sort through it all very carefully. Community content is supportive and helpful to users. It should not be necessary to sort through these tutorials as the info should be right in the docs. Community content is supplemental. If you don't find the information you were looking for in the docs themselves, create a comment right on the Help page and I'll see to it that it gets fixed ASAP.
Groppler wrote:
I am quite surprised by this and think the absence of a real user guide is a significant shortcoming of Premiere Pro, not shared by other products on the market.
It is a real user guide. I'm sorry you don't feel that way. If you want a doc with only Premiere Pro CS6 info in it, I can understand that request. Unfortunately, that was impossible for this round.
If you have any suggestions for the next round of Help documentation, a better place than here would be the Community Help forum. Please voice your concerns there, as the people that actually make decisions about Help are hanging out there.