Throw away the manual?

[Eric Coughlin]

Do you keep or throw away the manual when you buy an item, such as say a camera?

Most manuals are available online, so a hard copy of many manuals for many types of equipment could just result in more clutter in the house. But maybe some like having a hard copy available.

Sometimes manuals are included in used sales, but I doubt they have much effect on the resale value of an item.

[Phil Rhodes]

I found an old manual for my Amiga 4000 the other day.

Possibly I should keep that as a memento. I've still got the Amiga somewhere.

[NorBro]

Sometimes it's easier to quickly flip through a book (when troubleshooting) rather than navigating a manual on the phone (especially when you're on a production).

Not sure how much clutter it's really going to add when it's clearly more valuable in every way to keep it.

[Eric Coughlin]

Not sure how much clutter it's really going to add when it's clearly more valuable in every way to keep it.

I dunno, a thousand manuals is a lot of clutter. You watch the hoarder TV shows? Sometimes dead animals get caught in the clutter and now you're responsible for animal genocide. Don't even get me started on babies.

[ahalpert]

I hate manuals and just look online. But if I were planning to resell, I would keep it. It gives the impression of a better-kept item and a feeling closer to buying something new. The 2 used lenses I bought from lensauthority came in the original box with original packaging and warranty card etc and it gave me a boost as a buyer, especially versus the sony 28-135 I bought on ebay that came in bubble wrap with no caps and the hood attached wrong

These days, if I think I may resell, I only pull out what I need from the box and leave all packaging etc inside it

[OldCorpse]

Depends on the item, doesn’t it? For a lot of simple stuff, it’s a waste of paper to even print a manual - like all those hard drives and SSDs I’ve bought over the years, that have a manual for dog knows what reason... I mean, what can a manual tell you about a hard drive. It’s silly.

But for some items, a manual is actually useful, because you don’t always have access to the internet fora the online manual, or because you need it to access the internet, so you’d be caught in a loop. That’s the case with some more complicated routers modems and hardware firewall gizmos - you need to have the manual right there, because the setup is complicated and you are not accessing the internet.

Meanwhile it’s not just an issue with having access to the internet at a given critical moment, sometimes you just don’t want to waste time searching online for a manual that may or may not still be on the OEM’s site. And then making sure you got the right model. It’s easier to just have the manual. That’s true for a lot of tools (woodworking, metalworking etc.), where the manual may not even be featured online, and you need the manual to troubleshoot.

That said, I admit to hoarding a lot of manuals - I don’t know if it might come in handy, so I just throw it into a drawer with the rest of the manuals... and now years later, it’s 4 drawers... oops. Then you realize that you still have manuals for gizmos that you no longer own.

What about manuals that come on a CD/DVD drive - now there’s a conundrum. First, do you still own a CD/DVD player - and then, are you sure the CD/DVD still works, or has it corrupted through the years.

From time to time, like every 5 years or so, I decide to tackle the manuals and throw most of them away, but then, 5 years later, somehow they’ve accumulated again. It’s a never ending battle.

[David Saraceno]

Keep the printed manual, but then attempt to locate online a digital (and searchable) manual and download it as a pdf file to our iPad.

[Jacob "Gray" Sundal]

They actually have resale value, so I like to keep them. I like to download a pdf of the manual to my iphone if i can, but that's risky if you only bring the iphone bc then if your phone dies or if there's no phone service to download the manual at basecamp before the shoot (or god forbid when something goes wrong with an item you didn't acquire the pdf for) then you're SOL.

[JPNola]

I dunno, a thousand manuals is a lot of clutter. You watch the hoarder TV shows? Sometimes dead animals get caught in the clutter and now you're responsible for animal genocide. Don't even get me started on babies.

In your post about diversity hiring you were soon talking about black females as potential mates to birth your children. Here you quickly went from discussion of instruction manuals to “animal genocide” and what I think is a reference to...dead babies?

wth? Are you setting out to post inappropriate, whack-azz content?

[Eric Coughlin]

In your post about diversity hiring you were soon talking about black females as potential mates to birth your children. Here you quickly went from discussion of instruction manuals to “animal genocide” and what I think is a reference to...dead babies?

wth? Are you setting out to post inappropriate, whack-azz content?

I'd asked you on the forums and in private message before to stop constantly attacking and criticizing me on the forums over the past year or two. Now you're taking a little joke in a topic about throwing away manuals and using that as another opportunity to attack me. Can you please please stop. I've never done anything to you to deserve such constant scorn from you. Please stop. Geeze.

Forums should be friendly. You are not.

This topic has nothing to do with diversity hiring. I fail to see how mentioning I found a black woman I know as being attractive and have considered asking her out is in any way offensive. You make it sound like you're offended by the idea of mixed marriage and that my having posted that is offensive to all, because clearly all of DVXuser is against mixed marriage. I left that topic because it seems to be headed in the direction of everyone just calling each other racists and being too political, which is against forum rules, and leads to posts like this contaminating other topics with your political views.

Now, back to the discussion of manuals...