XMB Manuals

Description

MANUAL can be use as a guide, read me, extra artwork & infos etc... and load them in game, without having to quit the hdd app/homebrew/PS3 PSN game.

In-Game Manuals for HDD games/apps

PS3 Games

Structure tree & infos

The icon of software manual will appear on XMB in Game by pressing (XMB-Game Column regardless of the PARAM.SFO CATEGORY) with this directory "MANUAL" (not working on 3.55, working on 4.21+).

Press to zoom in/zoom out, or buttons to close it.

NP**12345/MANUAL/001.DDS, 002.DDS    //XMB in English (United Kingdom & United States)
NP**12345/MANUAL/02/001.DDS, 002.DDS //XMB in French
NP**12345/MANUAL/03/001.DDS, 002.DDS //XMB in Spanish
...
NP**12345/MANUAL/17/001.DDS, 002.DDS //XMB in Portuguese (Portugal & Brazil) 
...

• The images, Direct Draw Surface (DDS) format, need to be compressed as DXT1 (resolution as 1920x1080 work on HDTV and SDTV).
• For add multiple languages, it seems to follow theses system Languages code
• only for HDD Contents ? (for Disc Game it was not working, be as SFO category DG or AP. For GD:? (see BLUS-31273 INSDIR pkg Angry Bird Star Wars edition))
• up to only 999 pages?
• PSX SCENE thread resource by Redemp

Links & Tutorials

• Here is a example of MANUAL in game, for PS Seismograph all / unsigned (7 pages not official version).
• here is a example of MANUAL in game, for FB Alpha Retro Loader by CaptainCPS-X (24 pages).
• git of CaptainCPS-X with infos for pkg.py to create propers pkg including MANUAL
• Gimp DDS plug in
• Photoshop 5.1 / CS6 "NVIDIA Texture Tools" plugin
• retroXMB MANUAL by Redemp
• True Ancestor PKG Creator patched for MANUAL

Gallery

Note: images converted to jpg for wikify purpose.

• 

  PS Seismograph page 002

• 

  PS Seismograph page 003

• 

  PS Seismograph page 004

• 

  FBAlphaRL page 001

• 

  FBAlphaRL page 003

• 

  FBAlphaRL page 017

PS2 Classics

• 0xx.dxt files: textures files
• manual.idx: index of the .dxt files

Standalone Manuals

PS3 PlayView

See PlayView for other PS3 standalone digital manual

PSP Digital Comic

Digital Comic for PSP

PS3 DigiManual

Named as Digimanual or Manual (Digital), they are stand alone pkg PS3 hdd games included in disc (PKGDIR for example) or available online.

Seems to be a standard utility (the eboot) specific to display this kind of manuals, so should be considered an app, not a feature of the firmware

Structure tree

NPUO30***/ (only from few US example)
    |
    |-ICON0.PNG (See Content Information files for HDD Game)
    |
    |-PARAM.SFO (SFO category HG)
    |
    |-PS3LOGO.DAT
    |
    |-USRDIR/
          |
          |-digiman.sdat
          |
          |-digiman_content.sdat
          |
          |-digiman_content_en.sdat (can also have others languages as digiman_content_es.sdat..)
          |
          |-EBOOT.BIN
          |
          |-assets/
                |
                |-image/ (can contain sub-directory such "screenshots", "modals"...)
                |    |
                |    |-.jpg and .png
                |
                |-sound/
                |    |
                |    |-.wav
                |    
                |-video/
                     |
                     |-.usm

Web Manuals

Online Manuals

Online instruction Manuals on XMB Network column. accesses the manuals hosted at (click in the table below to go to a specific manual page):

Read manuals.playstation.net/document and us.playstation.com/support/manuals

Users	Settings	Photo	Music	Video	TV/Video Services	Game	Network	PlayStation Network	Friends

Game Options Menu Manuals

Some games has an online manual that can be accessed from the "options menu" in main XMB (by pressing triangle over the game icon)

Manuals Multilingual Support

• Notes:
  • Portugues (Portugal), and Portugues (Brazil) can share the same manual ingame
  • English (United States), and English (United Kingdom) can share the same manual ingame