Is it too much to ask for PDF manuals? Apparently so

People are very impressed by how technology enabled some of us to weather the lockdowns. I guess it's a silver lining, though arguably to the dark cloud that without teleconferencing, email etc. the chattering classes might have been less able to lock us down at all. But never mind. The point is that while technology marches on, or prepares to dance on our graves (see Boston Dynamics' latest video), I want to complain about PDF manuals.

They may not seem very cosmic. But they're all about the green digital economy of the 21st century and if we muff the easy stuff it's not a good sign.

Like you, I routinely buy things online. I order digitally, pay digitally, and while archaic humans deliver the stuff in quaintly non-autonomous gas-powered vehicles, they navigate with GPS on their telephone then email a digital photo to confirm delivery. Amazing. What next?

Well, next I open it and find a pile of documents. So I go to the company website to download the PDFs on the theory that if it's worth them giving to me it's worth my having, but I don't want to fill my house with dusty paper and digital storage is now incredibly cheap.

I'd rather not get a paper manual at all. Just a hyperlink or QR code on the box or, better yet, the product linking to the digital download. It helps the environment, saves them printing and freight charges and spares me clutter.

It's win-win-win and not technically difficult. Years ago I bought a lawn mower with QR code on the housing. And if you object that some people are on the wrong side of the “digital divide” I consign you to techno purgatory because anyone able to purchase products online necessarily has internet access.

OK, if someone pays cash in-store, offer the box with paper manuals. But otherwise why do it? Answer: because there isn't a PDF. I cannot count the number of times I've asked a firm for the digital “paperwork” to avoid scanning the physical version, often over something containing microchips, only to be told no problem, we can't do that.

I then explain to the techsavvy millennial on the other end of the email that since you managed to print the document you must have a digital version, and whatever software (sorry, “app”) generated and printed it probably has a “Save as PDF” option. But these conversations do not go well.

In a recent surreal exchange I was told, and I quote, “As we move towards a more environmentally responsible environment, much of the documentation on our products is not printed in manuals. We do have this information accessible in printer-friendly PDF documents, which you can access with the links below.”

Very woke. Except you slept through my actual complaint that I only had the printed version not the PDF. And while the links, to be fair, did offer a different less useful version of some of what came in the box, they offered no version at all of the rest.

It happens all the time. For instance you get glossy paper safety instructions, surely important even if they tend to consist of the “do not eat bleach” and “do not immerse electronics in bathtub” variety. But even if you find a “Documentation” tab on the product webpage it fails to offer Safety (or Quickstart) though with luck there's a two-year-old Australian manual for a different size and model.

In such situations the lawn mower story never seems to help. Including recently when a company claimed it couldn't supply a PDF because its manuals were printed in Vietnam. Dude, if you can communicate digitally with Vietnam about the content of manuals, and putting printed versions in the box, you can certainly send an email saying “Hit `Save as PDF' and email whatever results so we can shut this crank up.” But no.

I realize “Tell the customer whatever makes them go away soonest” rather than “Customers make paydays possible so respond politely and intelligently” is a venerable, even pre-digital customer lack-of-service principle. But it's double-edged if the crank is also a columnist, though I refrain from naming the company.

Seeking a semi-positive final note instead, I frequently end an old-tyme face-to-mask transaction by asking for an emailed receipt and they react though I'd requested it in Sanskrit. When I add “Home Depot sells hammers and they do it, so you could too” they double down on me being weird.

Maybe I am. I don't like modernity. But if I must live with its bad aspects until the Boston Dynamics' headless terminator does its thing complete with modern gender-neutral pronoun and elegant satirical victory dance as my lasered ashes scatter, is it too much to ask for a PDF of its ding-dang manual?

Apparently so. That's progress for you.

I CANNOT COUNT THE NUMBER OF TIMES I'VE ASKED A FIRM FOR THE DIGITAL `PAPERWORK'.