According To Mike

Product instructions must be tailored for the product you have purchased.

In an effort to cut costs, companies have began to make thick instruction manuals that cover multiple products and multiple languages. This is confusing to the consumer with the fine print, the one-off models being different from one another, etc.

It is understood that companies want to keep their product costs down. I don't like to share an opinion without some suggestions. Here's a couple that come to mind pretty quickly:

• The manuals would be much thinner (and cheaper) if you only had one product and one language. While the combination of different manuals (products x languages) being produced goes up, the size of the manuals goes down. I'm sure that the increase in can't be detrimental if you evaluate it. It may increase the price of the product slightly, but higher value products should not be impacted that much. However, I am not an expert in the paper manual field though, and could be totally wrong.
• Distribute the manuals in PDF format on a CD, or give a link to them online. Let the consumer decide how they want to print/view it (unless it is a manual of something that requires an offline copy to get online - no chicken and egg scenario, please.) This will also allow them to search the manual digitally which is an extra benefit.