It really isn't a particularly good manual for learning a program. It's okay for some reference, but it's somewhat perfunctory even as a reference. I defy anybody to figure out how to use the Poser 5 Material Room from reading the manual. I recently opened up the manual to figure out how to add a metallic reflection to a texture and there's nothing in there to explain how to do it properly, just quick one-liners briefly describing the nodes. The index isn't any help because it doesn't even point to anything in the Material Room for "reflect". Probably the reason that the Poser 4 manual is better than 5's is that it was done when Poser was under Metacreations. Their manual for Painter remains an excellent resource with examples and reference information neatly intertwined. It's one of the best put together manuals I've ever seen. Just flipping through the manual is fun because of all the visual examples.