PDF File Viewing &
Downloading Instructions |
PDF File Viewing &
Downloading Instructions |
|
Windows Users
To download the file directly from within Windows using their Internet Explorer, right click on the hotlink and a pop-up menu will appear. Select the "Save Target As..." menu item and then you will be asked to identify a destination for the file on you local hard drive. When the file is fully downloaded, open it in the Acrobat Reader or Exchange program. If you want to view it within your browser--left click on the hot link.
Windows Pop-Up Menu with Right Click Macintosh Users
The same general rules and limitations exist for Macintosh users as have been described above. To download the file to the hard drive, click and hold the mouse button down until a pop-up window appears. Select "Download Link to Disk" (MS Explorer 4+) or similar menu item, and then choose the destination for the file.
Here is a test file to try out the on-line and off-line downloading procedures. It contains the same information as is presented on this page.
It is possible to "download" PDF files within your Internet browser using the Adobe Acrobat PDF Viewer plug-in for browsers. If you have an Acrobat plug-in installed, clicking on the PDF hot link will automatically start downloading the file and will show you the first page as soon as it is ready. The Acrobat plug-in will display the first page of the document as soon as it is downloaded; that usually takes several seconds to a minute--depending on the quality and speed of your network connection.
The files must be navigated and printed using the Acrobat PDF Viewer's icons and not the browser's menu items. The PDF document MUST be printed using the Acrobat Viewers print icon on the upper left corner of the viewer. If the browser's print menu is used, the document may not print clearly, or not print at all.
The best place to view and use PDF files is off-line. While viewing PDF files on-line is a great feature, it does limit some user interface options and is somewhat impractical for large PDF files on the Internet. It may be wiser to download the file for with the Adobe's Acrobat Reader or Acrobat Exchange applications. The benefit of this is each of these applications allows for faster navigation, use of the search function and index services if the file is included in a detached index.
It appears that some service providers place limits on the size of files that they will allow their users to attach to e-mail (usually less than 1 megabyte), or download directly. While the PDF version of a document may appear to be a large file compared to many HTML and graphic files, the PDF file is frequently one-half to one-tenth the size of the parent files! The collection of parent resources would be more difficult to download and would not provide the high level of services available in the Acrobat PDF format.
The Acrobat Reader is capable of printing to a variety of printer types, including PostScript, HPGL and PCL, without any additional software. Choosing the "Print..." menu item in Acrobat will call up the standard print dialog box found on your system. In general, choose "Shrink to Fit" option to allow the PDF page images to fit on your paper. There is no required "paper size" for a PDF file and it is common for the contents of a PDF file be used as virtual slide show in a landscape format.
Thoroughly read the "ReadMe" file installed with the Acrobat program; it contains a wealth of information on various techniques to maximize on-screen image quality, maximizing display speed and ways to deal with the unique qualities of many popular printers.
The PDF (Portable Document Format) requires a special stand-alone application, or plug-in for your Web browser to view PDF documents. The basic software is available free from the Adobe Corporation. The free Adobe(R) Acrobat(R) Reader allows you to view, navigate, and print PDF files across all major computing platforms. Acrobat Reader is the free viewing companion to Adobe Acrobat 3.0 and to Acrobat Capture(R) software. All links to PDF files have a icon beside them or "(PDF)" in the text link.
If you do not have Adobe(R) Acrobat(R) Reader software, it is available free from Adobe Inc. by clicking the Get Acrobat Reader icon below.
Link to >
A more sophisticated version of this software package called Adobe Acrobat provides the software tools for the creation, basic editing and indexing of PDF files. It is available as a commercially sold product from Adobe. The commercial product is available through most software retailers.
From time-to-time we get inquires about my use of PDF (Portable Document Format) files on my Web sites. I use the PDF format for several reasons:
