Uploading your service manuals
Last updated 2026-05-04
Pro users can upload their own service manuals so Boat Guru answers cite the exact pages from your book, not a generic spec sheet. This is the single biggest jump in answer quality you can buy — especially for older engines, rare models, or any time you need a torque value that has to be exact.
Why upload your manual?
Generic answers are good. Manual-cited answers are better. When Boat Guru can read your manual, it pulls the precise procedure, the exact torque sequence, the right diagnostic flowchart for your year and trim level. Instead of "the impeller usually wants 25 in-lb," you get "page 4-12 of your service manual specifies 22 in-lb in a star pattern." That's the difference between confidence and crossed fingers.
How to upload
In your account, open the Manuals section and click "Upload." You'll pick a file from your computer, tag it with the boat or engine it belongs to, and submit. The file uploads to secure storage and enters processing.
Supported file types
- PDF (the most common — most factory and aftermarket manuals come this way)
- Scanned PDFs (we run OCR, so even photo-quality scans of paper manuals work, though clean digital PDFs are faster and more accurate)
We don't currently accept Word documents, web archives, or image-only formats other than scanned PDF. If you have a manual in another format, convert to PDF first.
Processing time
Most manuals process in 5 to 20 minutes. Long manuals (1000+ pages, common for inboard diesels) or scanned manuals with heavy OCR work can take up to an hour. You'll see a status indicator on the manual entry: queued, processing, ready, or failed. You can keep using Boat Guru while it processes — it just won't cite the manual until it's ready.
How citations show up
Once your manual is ready, ask a question that's covered by it. The answer will include a citation block like "Source: Your Mercury Verado Service Manual, page 4-12, section 4.3.2." If you've uploaded multiple manuals, Boat Guru picks the one most relevant to your question (informed by your boat profile) and cites it.
Downloads and mechanic handoff reports
Boat Guru uses uploaded and indexed manuals for citations and source references. It does not provide manual PDF downloads unless explicit source rights have been cleared for that specific manual or source. Mechanic handoff reports may include citation context, but they do not expose raw manual PDFs or source files.
When processing fails
A small number of manuals fail processing. The usual causes:
- The PDF is password-protected. Remove the password and re-upload.
- The PDF is corrupted or truncated. Re-download from the source and try again.
- OCR confidence is too low (very poor scan quality). Try a higher-resolution scan.
- The file is over our size limit. Split into smaller logical sections (e.g., engine vs hull) and upload each.
If processing fails and none of the above applies, use the contact form and include the manual filename plus the error message shown on the manual entry. We can usually fix processing-side issues within a business day.
Privacy
Your uploaded manuals are private to your account. We don't share them with other users, and we don't use them to train models. See the privacy guide for the full picture on how we handle your data.