A dispatcher expressed disapproval of the airline's on line reference manuals for accessing critical items such as MELs and QRHs. He felt their lack of user friendliness made them less valuable under pressure than hard copies of critical documents.

Narrative

One of my flights radioed to advise they had main deck cargo smoke detection loop indication and had worked though the QRH procedures 3 times trying to clear. Crew then received ECAM message to land ASAP. Captain and I agreed to land aircraft in ZZZ. An emergency was declared per Captain as precautionary measure. While I completed radio calls and emergency procedures; fellow Dispatchers were looking for QRH so I could double check procedures. At the same time another Dispatcher was dealing with a cracked windshield also trying to find QRH references. We discovered the QRH hard copies were not available only the on line manuals. Then I discovered the on line version cannot be 'clicked on' as the MELs. You must scroll though the index and pages reading as you go to determine were you are in the book. This proved to be extremely slow and cumbersome to use in emergency situation. By the time I found what I was looking for the aircraft had landed. Search feature is also useless because you need to know exact wording in QRH. For example you cannot type in windshield it must be window. Index lists this under Miscellaneous. The best solution would be make hard copy available. This would allow easier faster access; and allow other dispatchers to assist by finding QRH procedure and making available for reference while I was on radio.