What is Adobe Acrobat Reader?

Adobe Acrobat Reader is one of many software packages supplied by Adobe.  It allows you to read PDF (Portable Document Format) files.

PDF is a universal file format that preserves all of the fonts, formatting, colors, and graphics of any source document, regardless of the application and platform used to create it.  The PDF format solves commonly encountered problems in electronic document distribution.  It allows you to read documents that were created with software you may not have yourself, and display and print these documents exactly as they were created.  Another advantage is that PDF files are usually much smaller than the original file (e.g., a PDF version of a Word file containing many graphs and figures could be four times smaller, without any loss of content).

Clever functionality can be added to PDF files created with other software, such as bookmarks, web links, and annotations.  Once produced as PDF files, the contents created with the source software cannot be edited any more.  This is useful for final versions of business documents.  Another interesting use of PDF files is for capture of web sites to your local PC.  Remember: the Reader cannot create these files or functionality -- but it allows you to view any PDF files that may have these extra features.

Why Do You Need Adobe Acrobat Reader?

You may already have received PDF files as e-mail attachments. Certain information on the Internet is also available as PDF files (e.g. most documents that can be obtained from US government websites such as the Internal Revenue Service are published in PDF format).

How to Get and Install Adobe Acrobat Reader

Adobe Acrobat Reader can easily be downloaded free of charge from the Adobe website http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html. Follow the instructions that are available at the Adobe website. You may need to make some minor changes that will allow the PDF files to be opened directly from within Internet Explorer or Netscape Communicator.

Getting Started Quickly with Adobe Acrobat Reader

Adobe Acrobat Reader is very straightforward to use. For a very complete user guide, find and open the file ‘reader.pdf’ in the directory in which Adobe Acrobat Reader has been installed on your PC. Some simple guidelines outlined below will help you to get started. Try them out on this ‘reader.pdf’ file or on any other PDF file you open, e.g., a file posted on TechWeb. Find the icon toolbar at the top of the applications window, and try the icons. They make it easy to navigate in a document and find information :

·         Try the arrows to ‘turn pages’.

·         Click the ‘Show/Hide Navigation Pane’ button to display bookmarks or thumbnails.

·         Bookmarks display a table of contents. Clicking on a bookmark (paper sheet symbol to the left of a subject) will take you to the document chapter you selected.

·         Thumbnails are page symbols. Select a page and double-click on it. You are transferred to the page you selected.

·         Magnify part of a page with the ‘zoom in’ (magnifying glass) tool: enclose what you want to magnify in a rectangle. Then move around with the ‘hand’ tool.

·         Reset the page display size (click one of the icons that look like a paper sheet), and try the other page display sizes.

·         Search for a word in the document by clicking the ‘find’ tool (binoculars)

 

Adobe PDF Help

Portable Document Format files (PDFs) are the preferred choice of most Web sites for quickly and efficiently delivering printed materials over the Internet. While SICR strives to provide you with the best possible customer service by responding to your concerns and questions in a timely manner, limited resources prevent us from diagnosing problems experienced on individuals' computers while attempting to download PDFs and other files from our Web site.

If you experience difficulties when downloading or printing a PDF or downloading Adobe Acrobat® Reader itself, a solution to the problem may be found in the Adobe Acrobat Reader Troubleshooting Guide on the Adobe Systems, Inc., Web site.

Before visiting the Adobe troubleshooting site, you may wish to consider a few of the most common problems experienced by users when downloading PDFs. These problems and their possible causes are listed below:

Note: These are only some of the factors that may present a problem when attempting to download or print PDFs. If you continue to have problems with Adobe Acrobat® Reader, fee-based telephone technical support is available from Adobe.

Lengthy download time
- Slow modem connection (a modem speed of 28.8 kps or higher is recommended). 
- Too much Internet or Web site traffic.

·         Unable to open a PDF
- Your browser version (e.g., Netscape Communicator, Internet Explorer) may be outdated.
- Version 4.0 or higher in either Communicator or Explorer is recommended.
- Acrobat Reader may not be installed (or may be improperly installed) on your computer.
- Too much traffic over the Internet or Web site. Try again later.
- Host site may be temporarily out of service. Try again later.

·         Unable to print a PDF
Problems in printing PDFs may be caused by a variety of software and hardware factors. A more complete description of possible problems can be found in the Adobe Acrobat® Reader Troubleshooting Guide.

·         Adobe Acrobat displays blank PDF pages in Netscape Communicator 4.5/4.6/4.7
Netscape Navigator 4.5 or higher uses SSL (Secure Socket Layer) differently than earlier versions of Navigator, and Acrobat viewers don't always display PDF files correctly with this version.

What to do about it:

Solution 1

Download the PDF file to your hard drive and view it locally:

1. Right-click the link (Windows) or place the cursor over the link and hold down the mouse button (Mac OS), then choose Save Link As from the pop-up menu.  Note: In some versions of Netscape you must position your browser on the blank page and select FILE/SAVE AS from the browser menu bar.

2. In the Save As dialog box, you may simply note the file name and location provided for the PDF file, or specify a name and/or location of your choice.

3. Click Save.

4. View or print the PDF anytime by running the saved file (usually by double clicking the file).

Solution 2

Download another browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer.

 

 

Tips on Downloading and Printing
Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) Files

Problems printing?

Version 4 of the Acrobat Reader plug-in for Internet Explorer has errors in it that can cause your computer to "hang" while downloading PDF files as well as cause other printing problems.

If you are using Acrobat Reader version 4, they best way to solve problems you may be having is to download and install (the free) version 5 at: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Depending on which printer you are using, they may not print properly in Adobe Acrobat Reader version 4.0 or 5.0 unless you select  the "Print as image" option in the printer dialog box.  Using the "Print as image" option may take several minutes to print one page. Please note that many of the PDF files available on this site require using Acrobat Reader version 3.01 (or higher). Acrobat Reader version 2.1 will not read these PDF files correctly and Acrobat Reader 3.0 has trouble printing correctly.
  • Adobe Systems Incorporated is the creator of the postscript page description language which is widely used to do high quality printing.
  • Adobe's "Acrobat" line of products is designed for publishing documents on the Web. The core of that publishing system is the Portable Document Format (PDF) developed by Adobe. The Immunization Action Coalition uses the Adobe page layout software, PageMaker, to produce its newsletters and other documents. These documents are then converted into PDF files using the Adobe Acrobat Distiller program and placed on our web site.
  • In order to read a PDF file, you need to run, on your computer, the Adobe Acrobat Reader program which is available for free from Adobe. There are Acrobat Reader versions for MS Windows, MS Windows NT, OS/2, Macintosh, and Unix platforms.
  • The current versions of Acrobat Reader, versions 4.0 and 5.0, install a "plug-in" into Netscape Navigator 2.0 (or later). With the plug-in, Netscape will automatically run Acrobat Reader for the display and printing of .pdf files you download from the Web.
  • Another option is for you to install Acrobat Reader as a "helper" application in your browser so that Acrobat reader will be run automatically to display and allow printing of .pdf files downloaded by Netscape.

Downloading tips

  • Instead of immediately displaying the downloaded PDF file in Acrobat Reader, you may wish to save the file to disk first and then opening it in Acrobat Reader. Doing so can avoid some bugs within Acrobat Reader that cause trouble when accessing the PDF file "directly" from the Web. You can do this in Netscape by holding down the SHIFT KEY when clicking on the PDF link. If you are using Internet Explorer, RIGHT-CLICK the link and select "Save Target As..."
  • Many of the PDF files on this site are quite large (more than 100,000 bytes) and may therefore take several minutes to download, depending on the speed of your modem and on how busy the server computer is.

Printing tips

  • Large PDF documents require sufficient memory in your printer in order to print correctly. For example, if your laser printer has only one MB of total memory, reversed-text blocks may print as solid black with no message given by the printer if the printer is set for high quality printing. This problem may be satisfactorily solved by setting the printer resolution to a lower value, for example, "medium" or 150 dots-per-inch.
  • If you have insufficient printer memory, another solution is, after downloading the entire file, to print a few pages at a time.
  • If the PDF document does not print properly from Acrobat Reader, you may need to select the "Shrink to Fit" box (located in the lower left corner of the print dialog box)  in order to have Reader adjust the printout to fit each page on a single sheet of paper.
  • Trouble with the HP Laserjet printed output may be solved by using the following settings (or similarly named ones):
    • "Use raster Graphics"  (instead of "Use vector graphics").   This may fix the problem of "reversed" text (white on black background) not printing, as well as other problems.
    • "Download TrueType Fonts as bitmap soft fonts" (select "bitmap" instead of "outline" or "graphics").  This may remove the overlapping of text on the printed document.
    • "Graphics dithering" select "coarse" or "fine" (instead of "none").  This selection may improve the quality of images contained in the document.

Problems viewing Acrobat files

The first option is to try saving the file to your hard disk and opening it from there.

Acrobat page appears blank
Microsoft has published an article in their knowledge base - Adobe Acrobat .pdf Files Appear as a Blank Window or Frame (Q177321) which offers a number of solutions to this problem.

Acrobat Reader shows error messages such as "color space not found"
If you are using Adobe Acrobat reader earlier than version 4, you may need to upgrade to the latest version. While we are attempting to maintain compatibility with earlier versions of Acrobat Reader, this is not always possible.

Printing Adobe Acrobat files

To print an Acrobat file from your browser:

·         Scroll to the end of the document to ensure that it has all downloaded to your machine

·         Click on the Print button in the Acrobat toolbar. Do not use the browser's print button.

If Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) files do not print correctly, there are a couple of things to try:

·         Download the complete file as described above rather than trying to print from within the browser.

·         People using MS Windows may need to change the settings on the printer driver.
Choose 'Properties' or 'Options' in the print dialog. Look for options that allow you to set fonts to download as bitmap fonts and use raster graphics rather than vector graphics.

 

Additional Links for Acrobat/PDF Assistance

Troubleshooting Printing Problems in Acrobat for Windows
Resolving Windows Printing Problems
Problems and Solutions for Access to PDF (Adobe Acrobat) Files on the Web

Links to Browser Downloads

Download Internet Explorerer for Windows
Download Internet Explorerer for Macintosh
Download Netscape Communicator 4.8 for Windows
Download Netscape Communicator 4.8 for Macintosh
Download Netscape Communicator 6.2 for Windows
Download Netscape Communicator 6.2 for Macintosh