On this page you will find some helpful hints on:

•   Opening PDF files
•   Browsing PDF files
•   Printing PDF files
•   Saving PDF files to your hard drive
•   Searching for text in PDF files
•   Copying and pasting text from PDF files
•   Still got problems?

The instructions below are based on the latest version of Acrobat Reader (6.0) released in May 2003. Note that when you open a PDF document in your browser window, rather than in an Acrobat Reader window, the Acrobat menu options may not appear and some of the Acrobat toolbars may not be visible. Some icons on the toolbars may also be contracted and hidden from view. Righting click anywhere on the Acrobat toolbar area at the top of your browser window will open a menu that will allow you to add any missing Acrobat toolbars (select “Dock all Toolbars” in that menu if you want to group the Acrobat toolbars together at the top of the window). Click on the down arrows on the Acrobat toolbars to show icons that have been contracted and hidden from view.

To open and view a PDF file, you will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. If you don't already have it, you can download Acrobat Reader free of charge from the Adobe web site.

Once you have Acrobat Reader installed on your computer, clicking on a link to a PDF file on our web site will automatically open the file in Acrobat Reader.

When you have a PDF file open on your screen, you can navigate your way around the document using the icons on the Acrobat navigation toolbar or using the Acrobat window scrollbar(s).

You can use the buttons with the left and right hand arrows on the Acrobat navigation toolbar to scroll backwards or forwards through the document one page at a time. You can also use the buttons with the left and right hand arrows pointing to a vertical line to navigate straight to the beginning or end of the document.

Clicking on the "Hand Tool" icon (the button with the hand on it) on the Acrobat basic toolbar will allow you to grab the text in the document and move it up and down the screen.

Large documents will generally have bookmarks displayed on the left, which you can expand or contract by clicking the plus or minus symbols next to them. Clicking on any item in the list of bookmarks will cause you to jump to the corresponding section in the document. Some documents may also have page tabs with thumbnail views of all the pages in the document. These will allow you to navigate to a particular page in the document by clicking on the appropriate tab.

You can change the document view - actual size, fit page (ie fit full page on screen) or fit width (ie widen document to fill the full width of the screen) - by clicking on the corresponding icon on the Acrobat zoom toolbar. You can also magnify or shrink the document by clicking on the "Zoom In" and "Zoom Out" icons (the magnifying glasses with the "+" and "-" symbols on them) on that toolbar.

You can choose between viewing one page at a time or all pages continuously by selecting "view > page layout > single page" or "view > page layout > continuous" in the Acrobat menu. It is generally better to choose the latter option if you want to copy text as this will allow you to select and copy more than one page at a time.

To print a PDF document, select "File > Print" in the Acrobat menu or click on the "Printer" icon in the Acrobat basic toolbar at the top of the Acrobat window in which the file has opened. Do not use the print menu on your web browser.

If you want to view a PDF document before printing, it is best to save the file to your hard drive and open it in Acrobat Reader from there. It will open and print much more quickly than printing it over the web via your browser.

To save a PDF document to your hard drive, right click on the link from our webpage to that document. Select "Save target as" (in Internet Explorer) or "Save link as" (in Netscape) and save it to the directory of your choice.

You will be able to open the file from that directory by selecting "File > Open" in the Acrobat menu or by double clicking on the file icon in your File Manager.

Some PDF documents are saved as images and are not searchable. Most PDF documents, however, are saved in searchable text format.

If you want to search for a particular word or phrase in a PDF file, click on the "Search" icon (the button with the binoculars) on the Acrobat file toolbar or choose "Edit > Search" from the Acrobat menu. In the "Search PDF" window that opens, type in the word or phrase you are looking for and click on "Search". (You can restrict your search by checking the boxes "Whole words only" and/or "Case-sensitive"). The cursor will jump to the first place in the document that word or phrase appears.

A results box will also appear listing all the occurrences of that word or phrase in the document in page order with a few words of context on either side. You can jump to any particular instance of the word or phrase in the document by clicking on that item in the results box. You can also use the "Edit > Search Results > Next Result" or "Edit > Search Results > Previous Result" in the Acrobat menu to navigate forwards or backwards to the next item.

To copy text from a PDF file to your clipboard:

You can then switch to your word processing program and paste the copied text from your clipboard into a document in the usual way.

Note that copying and pasting text from PDF files can have unpredictable results, particularly where text spans more than one column or page or includes a table, pictures or marginal notes. You may need to do some editing to fix the copied text.

If you are still having problems, visit the Adobe Acrobat Reader Support web page for further guidance.

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