How many of you still use a paper catalog to find electronic component products?

I still prefer the paper version.

It's faster to find it, and doesn't require you to guess what category it falls under.

Mark

Thanks for sharing, Mark!  I'm curious if you fall in the majority or minority on this conversation - we shall see!

I don't have a paper version. I've requested one twice, but I think there is a back log. I prefer using both. If I know exactly what I'm going for, the online searching is faster. If I just want to look through what the company offers, the catalogue is best.

Not me, always on line searches

Peter

Most of the vendors I use don't even offer paper catalogs any more.  For a large distributor, there really isn't any point because there's no economical way to print a catalog with millions of different parts.  Individual semiconductor manufacturers used to produce catalogs, which were great for finding out what they offered, as Michael noted above.  TI used to have nice catalogs for specific product lines.  When I go to a conference with expo, I look forward to updating my catalog collection.  Lately, they don't provide printed catalogs any more.  I guess they expect people to print the PDFs if they want hard copy.  Guess what?  We don't print their PDFs and therefore don't know their products exist, and then they act surprised when we don't order their parts.

Samtec is a notable exception, and Freescale has a nice ARM product catalog.

I'm all online. Maybe I'm missing something, and of course I don't buy components for a living.

Mike

I like the pdf catalogs you can flip threw them like paper with your tablet and they do not take up much room on the shelf.  Other then that I use online searches for what I am looking for.  As for learning about new products that is what I am doing here.  Electronics at this time is not what I do for a living so I just wait till someone posts something I am interested in to learn about new products.

I like a mixture of catalogue and on line. When I am trying to decide on a style of switch or similiar component I like to go to the paper catalogue so I can flip back and forth between pages and compare sizes and styles. My comfort with catalogues and print media relates, I am sure, to my age and experience. I am slowly being forced to accept the on line way of doing things. Unfortunately my only real comprehensive catalogue is from the competition. On the other hand I have never been able to understand how the parts company could supply me with such a nice big catalogue for the relatively small volume of purchases that came from me.

John

It could be interesting.

I have to agree with some of the others, use of both can be an advantage, but the printed specials that element14 does are always a must read.

A pdf is fine if you don't have to use the online versions to view it ...ie download and read.

And like Johns says if your customer doesn't know you sell it, you're not going to buy it.

Mark

I get the weekly bumff sheets from CPC and I must say that they make good reading in locations where electronic devices are inappropriate or connection marginal (loo or train ). My dad likes to read them also mostly to compare with DIY shops !

Yes they have a place !