Portable Document Format (PDF)

Why we use PDF
Many documents placed on our website are created in Portable Document Format (PDF). They are most commonly denoted by the above icon. PDF is used because it maintains the original look and feel of large documents, and allows us to place more publications on the web in a quick and efficient manner. Further, PDF products are independent of platforms, applications, and distribution media.

How to obtain a PDF Reader
Versions of Acrobat Reader exist for all major computer platforms, including Windows, Macintosh, LINUX and several other operating systems. Please follow the instructions on the Adobe Acrobat download page to install the Acrobat Reader.

The following are the System Requirements for Acrobat Reader 7.0:

Windows System Requirements

• Intel® Pentium® processor
  
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional or Home Edition (Service Pack 1 or 2), Windows 2000 (Service Pack 2), Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, Windows Server 2003, or Windows NT (Service Pack 6 or 6a)
  
• 128MB of RAM (256MB recommended)
  
• Up to 90MB of available hard-disk space
  

Macintosh System Requirements

• PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor
  
• Mac OS X v10.2.8, 10.3, or 10.4
  
• 128MB of RAM (256MB recommended)
  
• Up to 110MB of available hard-disk space
  
• Safari 1.2 browser supported for Mac OS X 10.3 or higher
  

Download the Adobe Acrobat Reader software now! This reader is free of charge.

Having problems with PDF Files?
Should you experience PDF files appearing as a blank window within Internet Explorer after downloading and are using Adobe Acrobat Reader version 4.0 or earlier, please upgrade to a later version.

If this does not resolve the issue please follow the following steps:

Use the "Save Target As" or "Save Link As" option to download the PDF file directly to your hard drive and bypass the Acrobat Reader plug-in.

1. Using the right-side mouse button click on the file (click on the title link) you are interested in.
   
2. Select the "save target as" option in Internet Explorer, or "save link as" in Netscape.
   
3. Save as type should be "Adobe Acrobat Document" or "all files."
   
4. Make sure you name the file (or accept the name supplied).
   
5. Know the location of where you are saving it.
   
6. Hit save.
   
7. Use the Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the file after downloading.
   

Accessibility and PDF's
Adobe Systems, Inc. is producing various products designed to make PDF documents accessible to persons using screen reading software. Their accessibility web pages describe their efforts. They also have a free downloadable accessibility plug-in called, MakeAccessible. This plug-in runs under Microsoft Windows 95 OSR 2.0, Windows 98, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows NT 4.0 with SP 5 or SP 6, Windows 2000, or Windows XP. Each system should have at least 64 MB (128 MB recommended) of RAM per processor, 200 MB of virtual memory, and 870 K of disk space available. The MakeAccessible Plug-in creates a tagged Adobe PDF file from an untagged PDF file. This allows a PDF document to be read by a screen reader.

ZIP Format Archive Files

Why we use ZIP
A Zip format allows either extremely large files, or files created in formats no longer widely used, to be combined and compressed and thus downloaded with more speed and ease. The user requires an "unzip" utility to extract files from an archive (all files for downloading have been compressed using zip archiving and compression). The time it takes to download a file depends on the size of the file and your connection speed.

How to obtain a ZIP Extractor
To acquire the decompressing utility for your computer's operating system, click on the appropriate link below:

Windows
Download a trial version of Winzip

Macintosh
Download a zip/unzip utility for Macintosh (MacZip)