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About PDF files

You will have noticed that on this website, every web page is also available as a "PDF". This stands for Portable Document Format, and it is a very groovy way of presenting information on and off the web. You need to buy a special program called Adobe Acrobat in order to make PDF files, but what's really good about them is that anyone can view them, so long as you have a free program called Acrobat Reader.

To find out if you have Acrobat Reader, click on any of the "PDF" links on this site. If the document starts loading and then displays itself in your browser, then that means that you have Acrobat Reader, so great. If you get a dialogue box asking you how you want to open the file, then just cancel it. You need to go to Adobe.com and download Acrobat Reader. Its a very useful program - PDF files are used all over the web - not just this site!

Acrobat Reader is actually two programs in one. Firstly, it's a "plug-in", meaning that it is a hidden program which plugs into your browser (Explorer, Netscape etc.) and gives your browser extra functionality. In this case, Acrobat Reader allows your browser to display PDF files within it. However, when you are viewing a PDF file in your browser, it feels a lot more like using Word, because the document appears as a series of A4 pages. You can easily print the document from here, and it will look exactly the same when you print it as it looks onscreen. Also, you can save the file to your hard disk and then read it later.

The other program is the stand-alone Acrobat Reader, which you launch from your Start menu (for Windows users). This program allows you to view PDF files that you have saved onto your hard disk when you're not online. That way, you don't need to open your browser and you can read or print the files at your leasure.

I've put everything up in PDF because it is a very powerful format which can be viewed on any computer (Windows, Mac or Linux) - and it will always appear exactly the same. Many of my PDFs have useful Bookmarks which you can use as interactive Contents pages. You won't be able to edit the files, but you will have convenient access to them on or off line.

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