Hello Gordon, There is no easy answer to your question. Whether or not instructions must be printed depends on the product type, country of sale and applicable standards or directives. It also can depend on the type of instructions. Without knowing details of a product and its use, it is impossible to give specific requirements.
The following are general guidelines and are my opinion only. If the instructions are not related to safety, either for installation or use, you can generally provide them in a digital format. Instructions related to safety are often required by safety standards to be in a printed form. The standards typically require safety information to be available in the local language. For equipment where the installer is different from the user, such as industrial equipment, there may be different requirements for the installation and user information. Where there are greater safety risks, standards may require placing the information on the product, not just in a paper manual. Ted Eckert Compliance Engineer Microsoft Corporation ted.eck...@microsoft.com The opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer. From: Gordon,Ian [mailto:ian.gor...@edwardsvacuum.com] Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 3:27 AM To: EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG Subject: All Is there a legal requirement to provide a paper copy of product instructions rather than supply these on CD? Ian Gordon The contents of this email and any attachments are confidential and are provided solely for the use of the intended recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any copying, disclosure, distribution, or use of this e-mail, its attachments or any information contained therein is unauthorised and strictly prohibited and you should please contact the sender immediately and delete this e-mail and any attachments from your system. No responsibility is accepted for any virus or defect that might arise from opening this e-mail or attachments, whether or not it has been checked by anti-virus software. - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <emc-p...@ieee.org> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc Graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. can be posted to that URL. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <emcp...@ptcnh.net> Mike Cantwell <mcantw...@ieee.org> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: <j.bac...@ieee.org> David Heald: <dhe...@gmail.com> - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <emc-p...@ieee.org> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc Graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. can be posted to that URL. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <emcp...@ptcnh.net> Mike Cantwell <mcantw...@ieee.org> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: <j.bac...@ieee.org> David Heald: <dhe...@gmail.com>
