It totally depends. If a shop works on a bunch of makes/models/years it’s unlikely they’ll have a hard copy FSM for everything they lay hands on. Having a digital library makes it easier to service a larger range of vehicles, and you can download them instantly so no waiting for a hard copy FSM to show up. The other advantage is the digital format is easier to search if you have someone that’s computer savvy and the document is done well so it’s searchable. You can search a database of millions of parts in just a few seconds. Or blow up that little picture of the exploded diagram you need into a full page document so you can see all the little parts? Super handy.
Having said that, I like to have a hard copy FSM for my vehicles. Sometimes it’s just easier to have that book in your hands, flip through the pages and find what you need. But I only have a handful of cars, and I started out with hard copy. And even I use the digital copies of the FSM’s I also have if there’s something I need to search for, because I’m decent with the computer too.
If it’s just you then use whatever you’re better at. If you’ve got employees, it’s gonna be harder and harder to find someone that’s faster looking something up in the hardcopy than they are finding the info in digital form.
