Lost your manual?
Having a problem with a product and can’t find its manual for assistance? There’d be few people who haven’t found themselves in this predicament at some stage — maybe the manual has accidentally been chucked out with the packaging or put away somewhere so safe that even you can’t find it, or maybe you bought the product secondhand and the manual was already missing. In fact, some people never open the manual at any stage!
Where do you go for help?
If this scenario sounds all too familiar to you, don’t worry: help may be on hand online. First up, visit the Web site of your product’s manufacturer to see if it has a viewable or downloadable manual for your product available there. If the problem product is getting a bit long in the tooth, you may be out of luck, but check anyway, because the manuals on offer online varies wildly from manufacturer to manufacturers — from a comprehensive collection to none at all.
Still no joy? Try one of these sites:
TheUserManualSite.com
TheUserManualSite.com
TheUserManualSite.com hosts manuals for over 300,000 products from more than 5,000 brands, and has in excess of 2 million members.
You’ll find downloadable manuals for loads of products including air conditioners, bread makers, camcorders, CD players, mobile Phones, clothes dryers, cordless telephones, digital cameras, dishwashers, DVD players, flat-panel TVs, laptops, lawn mowers, microwave ovens, MP3 players, printers, stereo systems, thermostats, universal remotes and washing machines. You can click on a category to find the major brands, or within each category, click on ‘Select a Brand’ for a drop-down list of more brand options.
You can sign up to the site (its free) to be part of the OwnerIQ community, where you can ask for the help of other community members, upload your own catalogues and read articles and tips. You also get your own online space to store your electronic manuals — a great option if you’re prone to mislaying your own paper ones.
The Manuals
The Manuals
Interfaces certainly don’t come any more simple to use than this one. Unlike TheUserManualSite.com, which actually hosts manuals itself, The Manuals is a Google-powered search engine that searches through almost 6 million free HTML and downloadable PDF manuals from across the Web.
Just as you would for a Google search, simply enter your product into the search box and click on Search.
Try The Manuals
UserManualGuide.com
UserManualGuide.com
This is another quite simple site that provides user manuals for a range of products, including mobile phones, cameras, motherboards, monitors, software, TVs and DVD players. It hosts manuals on the site and products are displayed by manufacturers — 11 brand names in all on the home page.
However, this site is a bit of a maze. If you click on any of the links on the home page, you’ll find another set of manufacturers on the left-hand side of the results page, which includes additional brand-name links — not necessarily related to the product search.
Try UserManualGuide
Gail Lipscombe has worked for some of Australia's hottest tech magazines for over 10 years. In her blog, she focuses on demystifying technology, gadgets and the web for average consumers.