Patent ID: 8230041

Claim:
A system for providing an electronic manual, the system operating in a communication network comprising a server and a plurality of terminals, the system comprising: a manual database configured to store a plurality of electronic manual information sets, each set describing content of a user manual of each model of a product including a plurality of sections categorized by functions of the product, wherein files corresponding to the sections, respectively, are stored in the manual database so that a full manual regarding a current model representing a model number or a model name is stored in the manual database and a differential manual describing functions of the current model which are different from former models is stored in the manual database; a customer information database configured to store customer information including at least customer ID information, product information indicating a model of the product currently owned by a customer concerned, skill level information and upgrade history information indicating upgrade history of models which had been owned by the customer concerned; a receiver configured to (i) receive, via the communication network, product user manual request information with customer ID information from a terminal and (ii) refer to the customer information database to obtain customer information of a customer corresponding to the received customer ID information; a selector configured to select, based on the customer information, files corresponding to the model currently owned by the customer which are not shared with the models owned by the customer before upgrade, from the files stored in the manual database as a differential manual between the current model and the former models according to the customer; and a provider configured to provide to the terminal, via the communication network, the selected files representing trouble index information linked to solutions which are in hierarchical structure and are presented step by step as the electronic manual.