In some cases, documents available for downloading may be in a variety of formats. The one you choose to open or download will depend on what software you have on your own computer and what you intend to do with the document once you have downloaded it.
Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files are ideal if all you need to do is to print a document. In most cases the document will open directly into your browser window. Once you have printed the document you can use the browser Back button to return to the Web page.
If the document does not open or gives you a choice of opening or saving it may be that your computer does not have an Adobe Acrobat Reader installed. If this is the case you can download it for free from www.adobe.com. Read the instructions for downloading the correct version for your computer.
Word 97 document (DOC) files are available if you want to save and edit the document. Depending on the way your computer has been set up a Word document will either open directly into your browser window or it will give you the option of saving or opening.
If your computer has Talking First Word installed the document is likely to take on some of the fonts and properties of the colour level you select when it is opened and may not look like the original. Some earlier versions of Talking First Word may fail to open a document. If this happens choose to save the document as described below and then open it as you would any other Word document.
A ZIP file (ZIP) will contain one or more documents all of which have been stored in a highly compressed format to reduce the time it takes to download.
In order to extract the file(s) in a ZIP file and read or print them you must have a ZIP utility on your computer such as WinZip, EasyZip or PKZip (most of the computers supplied to schools recently have one of these utilities already installed). Once you have extracted the contents of a ZIP file you can save and/or print it and, if appropriate, edit the document.
In most instances, if you click a file it will either download and open in your browser window, or it will ask you whether you want to open it or save it. There may be instances when you want to save the file on to your computer and then open and edit it later.
· Click the link (which may be a text link or an icon) with the right mouse button instead of the left button.
· This will bring up a menu from which you should select Save target as.
· Browse to a suitable folder on your computer (My Documents or My Work for example) and save the document.
You can then open it with the appropriate application in the normal way and do with it whatever you wish.
With ZIP files and some other types of files you may be asked if you want to Open or Save the file regardless of whether you click with the left or right mouse button. Choose the relevant option and click OK.
To return to the page you came from click on the Back button from your browser toobar.
