Shop Manual on CD??

[Grimm]

I have seen on ebay a business selling shop manuals on CD. Does anyone have experience with these, and how does it compare to the book version? I see it says works best with Access '97, do you need that program to use it?? Thanks

[Sgt Art]

I bought one for my Lincoln Mark VIII. It's not bad for the money, it has pretty good graphics and instructions. It's better than most of the Chilton and Haynes manuals I've seen. I got mine on Ebay as well.

[6219_Rules]

Doug:

It depends on the manufacturer of the CD manual. Was it created for the medium or was it scanned and burned in a compatible format. Access is a data base manager, so that makes me wonder. What it means is that the format works best of that product, but it would work for others, which ones an open question. I would have thought it would be released in PDF (Adobe, Indesign) format, or at least Word or WordPerfect. Graphics and text all rely on the resolution your system is working at for the video driver. What looks good on my 720 x 640 might not work at a lower resolution. Also I have found that it is important to know what resolution the original illustration was scanned at and captured. Fuzzy, indistinct illustrations are really irritating, if not down right damaging.

I think Chilton manuals are well written. Haynes make an excellent book with normally clear and concise illustrations. But my personal favorite manual is the Motor series. I think the 1974 Manual will cover the 1968 Olds. I have one for my '69. I hope that helps.

[Guest imported_DaveZZZ]

I just received my body, chasis, and engine manuals on CD-ROM from janet@4door.com (email contact) from the site http://www.4door.com I am quite pleased. I forget the name of the viewer, but it is some pdf-like format. Zoom in, zoom out, an everything is clear and well scanned. I am very happy. The only problem is that you need to print out the pages before you head down to the garage, and you can't just idly flip through it on the er, couch.

I have an old celeron 366 machine collecting dust, and I am thinking about putting that in the garage so that I can print pages as needed.

[6219_Rules]

Yes that would work...or an old laptop, even a 486 intel, would be fine. You are probably using the free Acrobat Reader that anyone can download. It is small and fast, allows for indexing and full table of content searches. Just remember that a desktop or tower case suffer from dust and particulate matter. You should cover them with a vinal or plastic cover when not in use. And once a month take a can of compressed air to clean them out. It will save you a lot of grief in the long run.

Thanks for the reference! I will check it out. I have a laptop, an iBook G3 on a wireless network I can carry into the garage. So I might look into that.

Great idea, Dave!!

[Grimm]

Thanks for the help, I might try it out.

[Guest imported_bigblock67]

I recently purchased a cd shop manual for my '69 98 from here.

http://www.actionsalvage.com/manuals/oldsombile.asp

I uses a program called paper port viewer. I had to dowload a software fix from their tech support site to make it work properly, but it's the complete shop manual and Fisher body manual for '69. It's well worth it.

Also Charles Dempsey at the fowollowing site had the paper manuals.

http://www.vintageauto.com/

The cd's and paper manuals are the same, GM factory shop manuals.