Comments on: Save Money and Time: Read the Manual

By: Gailete

Gailete — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 15:14:39 +0000

I read manuals and my husband wings it LOL. But what frustrates me is how manuals tell you just about nothing anymore. Just a few little photos of step-by-step how to install things. You download the ‘bigger’ manual and it just has more pictures, no text to go with it. and the more involved the item the less the amount of info they give.

I do product reviews and got a color laser printer to review. I got it up and running by following the pictures, but couldn’t figure out why the paper tray wouldn’t go all the way back in. Even my hubby couldn’t figure it out. All pictures of the printer showed the paper tray in, but I couldn’t find a single thing saying how to trouble shoot our problem. It wasn’t until I wrote my review and saw what others were saying that I found the paper tray doesn’t go all the way in the machine. Never was this noted in the so-called manual. I wish they would write manuals with photos and text and be thorough instead being as brief as possible. One little line of text saying that the paper tray doesn’t close flush with the front would have saved me and hubby close to an hour of fussing around.

By: hon

hon — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 03:03:32 +0000

I staple the receipt & warranty info to the inner cover of the manual & slide them into a page protector info to store in an D ring binder. It’s important to have a system for receipts should returns be necessary. Manuals offer the 1-800 number to get help when I can’t understand the trouble shoot instructions.

Buyers appreciate the manual when I sell stuff on Crailgslist.

By: jay

jay — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 20:09:20 +0000

As my Depression Era Mom used to say: “If all else fails, read the instructions”.

I think we’ve developed an aversion to them because so many things are either intuitive, meant to thrown away instead of fixed, or the manuals so dang useless…

I have downloaded most of ours and along with receipts have them stored within a software program (Paperless). One could also just keep a folder of the PDF files. The only problem with this is that its a bit awkward when you need the manual in front of you when fixing the problem (guess an iPad would solve that!)

By: Roberto

Roberto — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 11:54:04 +0000

I personally hate reading product manuals. I used to throw them aay. But lucky me that my wife loves to keep them and is very well organized. She keeps them all in one place together with receipts and all.

Because of this I have been able to refer to them many times as I had appliances malfunction after a storms surges. With one of my TVs I tried to troubleshoot it myself and after wasting 30 minutes I went to the manual and it only took a minute.

Now I do not give my wife a hard time about saving and collecting them. She is awesome.