I purchased this after reading some of the reviews. I produce training manuals which are between 160 & 220 pages and needed something inexpensive to produce a clean cut. This item fits that bill perfectly. It comes with no setup instructions, but quite frankly it didn't require any. All you need to do is put on the guillotine handle and reverse the clamp arm and you are ready to go.The pull down handle comes with a safety mechanism built in, so once you put it back in the upright position, you won't be able to cut unless you press the safety release.So how does it cut? Clean. And without much effort. There are markings (in 1/16" and mm) on its deck that allow for precise lining up of your material and there is an adjustable thingy which can be firmly set in place at any of these markings. If you search youtube for "stack s12 paper cutter demo" the machine looks exactly like this except for the STACK logo and works in the same fashion with the same minimal effort. One of the other reviewers mentioned this and it was this video that convinced me to purchase.The only issue that I have is that I needed to put some item in-between the clamp and my book so as to not leave clamp marks on the cover. I eventually ended up using a sheet of styrofoam to do the trick.Set aside a 3' x 2' workspace which can take a 40lb weight and lots of arm cranking and you are ready to go!