TARDIS Instruction Manual A TARDIS Instruction Manual , also known as a TARDIS Manual , TARDIS Handbook or TARDIS - Service , was a book that instructed in the piloting and workings of a TARDIS . It contained 726 pages . ( PROSE : " Vengeance on Varos " ) The Doctor ' s manual . The Doctor ' s TARDIS had an instruction manual , but the Doctor rarely looked at it . His failure to heed the instructions led to numerous backfiring attempts to work the TARDIS controls properly . The TARDIS Instruction Manual that belonged to the First Doctor was one of the segments of the Key to Time scattered throughout the Doctor ' s timeline . ( COMIC : " Time & Time Again " ) The Fourth Doctor owned a handbook specific to the Type 40 model . While making modifications to the TARDIS , he read aloud the passage " when making modifications , it ' s extremely important to shut everything down , except that which is not necessary to shut down " , and commented that he found it quite sensible . ( TV : " The Horns of Nimon " ) On other occasions , the Doctor disagreed strongly with the manual , at one point even tearing out one of its pages . ( TV : " The Pirate Planet " ) On one occasion , he told Romana that having the TARDIS manual quoted to him was bad for his concentration . ( AUDIO : " The Sands of Life " ) Tegan Jovanka tried to understand the manual when she accidentally set the TARDIS in flight while trying to get herself off of the Monarch ' s ship . She called it gibberish , finally throwing it to the floor and stamping on it . ( TV : " Four to Doomsday " ) Peri Brown found a TARDIS handbook propping open a vent in the Sixth Doctor ' s workshop ; he admitted he ' d started reading it once . On Peri ' s urging , he used it to figure their way out of a power failure . ( TV : " Vengeance on Varos " ) When an alien creature tried to get into the TARDIS , the Seventh Doctor consulted the manual for help . However , the creature had already breached the ship ' s dimensional interfaces , which included time , and so the manual was already destroyed even though the creature had not yet broken into the ship . ( PROSE : " " ) The Eighth Doctor once went looking for the TARDIS manual in the library , but became distracted by the other books there . ( AUDIO : " Storm Warning " ) He had a quick - start guide , while the manual itself had its own street in the TARDIS . ( AUDIO : " Orbis " ) Sarah Jane Smith once happened upon a room in the Eighth Doctor ' s TARDIS in which several thousand volumes of the TARDIS Instruction Manual were kept ; she took this to mean the single book she had seen the Fourth Doctor use was just the introductory volume . ( PROSE : " Interference - Book Two " ) Fey Truscott - Sade once used the Eighth Doctor ' s manual to pilot the TARDIS to Gallifrey , ( COMIC : " The Final Chapter " ) although the Doctor later revealed that the Threshold had secretly guided her actions by giving her an implant that allowed her to read the manual , which was printed in Gallifreyan . ( COMIC : " Wormwood " ) The Eleventh Doctor admitted that , at some point , he ' d disagreed with the manual so much that he threw it into a supernova . ( TV : " Amy ' s Choice " ) Ashildr ' s Manual . Ashildr / Me referred to the manual when trying to learn to fly the TARDIS she and Clara stole . Pointing out the relevant pages , she said that she couldn ' t figure out how to get the chameleon circuit to work right from the manual , leaving their TARDIS stuck as a 1960s American diner . ( TV : " Hell Bent " )