Adobe Acrobat PDF format is a useful and universal format in wide use,
and the Adobe Acrobat Reader is FREE.

Adobe Acrobat (i.e. a "PDF" file) is a format that preserves all the information and formatting of a file, even when you do not have the application that created it installed on your computer, for example high end desktop publishing or graphics applications. It is a very common format in use on the web, especially on the RI web site, so you will find it handy in many circumstances in the future, not just for this document. It is available for PC, Mac and Unix operating systems (OS).

Getting Adobe Acrobat Reader

If you need to download the Acrobat installer, just click on the icon below.
Follow the prompts to select and register your system. You only need the FREE Reader, the other options are for versions that can create PDF files as well as read them, and of course you pay something for those. The first time you use the reader it may prompt you about upgrading to a full version, but once that is dismissed it won't bother you again about that.

Get Adobe Acrobat Reader

Adobe Acrobat Version 9 is the latest version released. If you select to download via the link above, you will be offered the latest version that is available for your computer OS (eg Acrobat Ver 5 for Win95).

Note: The "Purchase Acrobat Upgrade" and "Acrobat Update" links on the site refer to the full version of Acrobat, which can create PDF files as well as read them, and which has to be paid for, but the Reader is FREE.

Using a Plug-in: Once you have Acrobat installed, you can copy the Acrobat plug-in file from the Acrobat Reader "Browser - plug_ins" folder to your browser's (Internet Explorer or Netscape) "plug-in" folder. Then you can read the newsletter within the browser by just clicking on the link. The installation process will usually ask you if want the plug-in installed in your browser(s) and do it for you.
However, ff you don't have the plug-in file installed for your browser, no problem, it may load the newsletter directly into Acrobat, or at worst may just ask you what you want to do with the file; respond that you want to "open" it and the computer should open a separate Acrobat window with the file loaded. Another option is to use the "Download to Disk" method below and then open the file from your disk location once downloaded.

Access for visually impaired: PDF documents containing text (but not scans of text) are readable (text to speech) by blind people using access technology with the help of 'Access Adobe'. Access Adobe translates PDF into HTML or into a text email, making it readable by someone unable to access PDF in the usual way. More information is at http://access.adobe.com/

Creating PDF files

The proper Acrobat writer software is around $500, but there are plenty of cheap, even free alternatives, although they may miss out on some features or options. Some software applications can "Save As", "Export", or "Print to PDF", so first see if yours will. Otherwise, check these sites out:

http://www.melbpc.org.au/pcupdate/2205/2205article13.htm - Melbourne PC group member's description of one free PDF printer driver.
http://www.download.com - CNet's software site, enter into the search box "create PDF", some of the very useful ones that should come up include:
   http://www.acrosoftware.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp - CutePDF is a free PDF creater.
(Get the Ghostscript PS2PDF converter there and install it first then CutePDF. Modify the line in the pdfwrite.rsp configuration file in the installed folder with a text editor from "-dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress" to "-dPDFSETTINGS=/printer" to reduce file sizes to half, see the FAQ on the above web page).
   http://www.pdf995.com - PDF995 is an inexpensive, but seemingly powerful PDF creator.
   http://www.makepdf.net - MakePDF is another inexpensive PDF creator.

Hints on using Adobe Acrobat

Hint: You can "Download direct to disk" by Right Clicking
( = Option Click on a Mac) on the file link and select "Save Target As", then nominate a location on your disk where you can locate it. You can then open it at your leisure in Acrobat by finding the file in your file manager (eg Windows Explorer, not Internet Explorer) and double clicking on it, or open Acrobat and navigate to the file via the File-Open command. Click here for other general Web Use Hints page .

Hint: Click on a link to a PDF file
to download the file into your browser or have it ask you what you want to do with it, depending on your settings for this file type and whether you have the Plug-In installed. After opening in the browser you should then be able to save to disk from the Browser's Acrobat toolbar. Also use the search and other PDF function buttons in the Browser's Acrobat toolbar, NOT the Browser's own toolbar, which is meant for HTML files.

Hint: To "Print Landscape with Portrait pages":
You usually get pages in "Portrait" orientation, ie taller than wider. Sometimes they come in Landscape, especially spreadsheets. Sometimes they can be mixed in the one PDF document. So that you don't have to worry about manually making the right setting, in the FILE > PRINT menu, select "Auto Rotate", and it will take care of it for you. If unsure, use the Print command (File > Print or [Control+P] keys) and in later versins there is a small preview of what the page will look like.

Hint: To "Print multiple pages" onto the one sheet of paper:
Example, the Newsletter comes set up for an A4 page, but you would like to print 2 pages on each sheet as 2 x A5 pages side by side, like a booklet. Most versions of Acrobat have this built into their "Print" dialogue window, and though different versions may differ in wording or location, this is typically how you would do that:
Select "Print" from the Acrobat "File" menu (or use [Control+P]).
In the "Page Handling" group of settings,
see the "Page Scaling" setting, which will probably be "Fit to Printer Margins" as the default.
Change that to "Multiple pages per sheet"
and set "Pages per Sheet" to "2"
and "Page Order" as "Horizontal" and print the document (which will take a bit longer).
Reset the "Page Scaling" setting to "Fit to Printer Margins" unless you want this booklet setup to be your default next time.

You can manually DUPLEX (print both sides of the paper) if you don't have a duplexing printer by printing the odd pages, then putting the sheets back in so they will print on the other side, and then print the even pages.

Hint: Use the "Text Select tool " in the Acrobat Reader 4 or 5 toolbar to copy text information.
The text selection tool uses the "I-beam" cursor. If you need to just select text in a rectangular area, like a column, rather than line by line down the page, hold down the Control key down while you drag the cursor to outline the area of text. Or cycle through the group of selection tools to the "Column Select tool" which has a rectangle on the I-beam cursor. How you cycle through the selection tools is described in the Graphic Select tool hint.

Note that the selection tool in Adobe Acrobat Version 7 is much smarter, and will work out what you want to capture, text or graphics. The only trick is that to select a box area or column, rather than all the lines between two points in a file, hold down the [Alt] key while dragging the mouse over the desired area.

Hint: Use the "Graphic Select tool " in the Acrobat Reader 4 or 5 toolbar to copy graphics to the Clipboard:
1. Choose the Graphics Select tool. In Acrobat Ver 4 do this by holding down the mouse button on the Text Select tool button on the toolbar and dragging to the Graphics Select tool of the options presented. Or press Shift-V as necessary to cycle through the group of selection tools: Text, Column or Graphic selection. The cursor changes to the cross-hair icon with the Graphics Select Tool.
With Acrobat Ver 5 the graphic select tool is beside the text select tools in the Arobat menu.
2. Drag a rectangle around the graphic you want to copy. To deselect the graphic and start over, click anywhere outside the selected graphic.
3. Choose Edit > Copy to copy the graphic to the Clipboard.

Problems are not common, and usually related to viewing a PDF file created with a recent version of the writer on a very much older version of the reader. Update to the latest version available for your system via the "Get Adobe Acrobat Reader" link above.

One peculiar situation that we have noted, in some circumstances:
A Mac user clicks on a PDF link in the "Safari" web browser (IE and Firefox seem OK), the file loads but appears incomplete. Changing the view zoom, eg from full page to page width or vice versa, adn it then displays the complete page. Either update the Adobe reader version or clear the setting for "Allow Fast Web View" in the Acrobat system preferences.