Thread: Pet peave 1 - wood working equipment manuals

Totally agree - most of the manuals supplied with machinery today need to improve 500% to be classed as poor.

With the technology and knowledge available today it is absolutely scandalous and irresponsible of any manufacturer to send out what they do, that being said, they will not change it until there is enough bad publicity or it costs them heaps because someone gets hurt because of a dodgy manual.

When I was in Japan in the early 80s one of the jobs a foreigner could get was re-writing manuals. They had already been translated, but they had to be sorted out again and translated from "jinglish" to english. Maybe the chinese don't think they need this. since they can do everything better and cheaper than us. Or at least that is what they are hired to do. We get what we pay for.

Do this one sometime to has. Are not satisfied enough price of tool is below price of rice want manual also read to be easy also. Sometime translate we manual so you be buying another machine to be getting spare part or sometime in future near so recover cost of translation or just being tricky downright for joking -

Now if only I could write the foreign language equivalent from from the same language position as english.

Originally Posted by BobL

Do this one sometime to has. Are not satisfied enough price of tool is below price of rice want manual also read to be easy also. Sometime translate we manual so you be buying another machine to be getting spare part or sometime in future near so recover cost of translation or just being tricky downright for joking -

Now if only I could write the foreign language equivalent from from the same language position as english.

Stick it through Babble Fish?

It's not just the language. Sometimes the diagrams seem to be a photocopy of a photocopy of a photograph taken with a box Brownie and then smudged.
Cheers,
Jim

Originally Posted by jimbur

It's not just the language. Sometimes the diagrams seem to be a photocopy of a photocopy of a photograph taken with a box Brownie and then smudged.
Cheers,
Jim

. . . of another model.

Originally Posted by BobL

. . . of another model.

True

and printed on toilet paper using a potato

Sorry folks, I agree that we get some attrocious manuals, but when you go shopping for goodies, do you ask for and examine the instruction manuals, and include their quality in the overall assessment of the machine. Importer/wholesaler/retailers may demand better manuals etc, if/when they establish that poor manuals are costing them sales. This won't happen if people do not include the manual quality in the machine assessment phase.

I used to design high end media production facilities and specify, assess, and purchase the equipment that was used. A standard element of the request for tender was that suppliers had to provide copies of instruction and service manuals, plus access to evaluation machines when they submitted the tender response. More than few who where trying to sell multiple machines with individual price tags beyond my annual salary level could not get manuals becuse they did not exist. Other manuals were poorly written or presented, or contained incorrect circuit diagrams or maintenance procedures that would be marginal on new equipment and totally hopeless for equipment mid way to it's major overhaul points.

Originally Posted by jmk89

and printed on toilet paper using a potato

After it's been eaten.

Originally Posted by malb

Sorry folks, I agree that we get some attrocious manuals, but when you go shopping for good . . . . . . More than few who where trying to sell multiple machines with individual price tags beyond my annual salary level could not get manuals becuse they did not exist. Other manuals were poorly written or presented, or contained incorrect circuit diagrams or maintenance procedures that would be marginal on new equipment and totally hopeless for equipment mid way to it's major overhaul points.

I agree, we purchase a £300,000 piece of analytical equipment from the UK and the manuals were nothing to crow about. The quality of the writing in the manuals provided was not all that hot given they came from a native english speaking country

The user manual was for a previous similar model and some the software it referred to was different or no longer available. The service manual was a set of circuit diagrams about 20% of which were also for the previous model. When we approached the company about the manuals they said they would fix the manuals which the sort of did but they never provided a service manual and we had to write our own. I think they were hoping we'd get them in to do the services which we didn't.

I install electronic equipment for a living and often have to write user manuals, mostly for software nowdays, because the manufacturers manuals aren't good enougth in order to prevent out customers ringing me every ten minutes because they can't understand the manual.I failed TEE english and i'm still capable of writing manuals that make more sense than some manufacturers from english speaking countries.

Good Morning All

Another factor not mentioned is that we live in an increasingly litagious world. Manuals have moved from being an informative document, to being a defensive document; their purpose being to reduce the risk of the manufacturer being sued by the purchaser even when the purchaser is a moron.

We all saw the newspaper reports where an enlightened individual bought a super-duper motor home and while cruising down the turnpike engaged the cruise control, and then went back to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. He caused a multi-vehicle pile up. He then sued the manufacturers because the manual did not specify that he had to actually steer the vehicle whilst on cruise control, and he won. He is, IMHO, almost as big an idiot as the court that found in his favour!

But manual writers have to consider such improbabilities.

Cheers

Graeme