All of our publications are offered as Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) files. PDF is a cross-platform, fully searchable, open file format that retains the fidelity of original documents and is the de facto standard for electronic distribution of documents. To view or print PDF files we provide, you need the Adobe Acrobat Reader Version 3.0 or later. The Adobe Acrobat Reader is available free from the Adobe Web site. To download it now, click this button:

If you open the PDF file for immediate viewing (either by default or by selection), you should understand that either all or part of the file is actually being downloaded to your computer. (See Byteserving PDFs.) When the download is complete, the file is automatically opened for viewing with the Adobe Acrobat Reader. You'll see an alert box that tells you the status of the download. Some of these files can be rather large, so the download can take a long time (depending on the speed of your connection and how much of the book is being downloaded at one time). You need to have enough space on your hard disk to accommodate the file. You do not have an opportunity to select the directory or drive where the download will occur.

If you press and hold the shift key on your keyboard while clicking on a book title, you will be presented with a dialog box. You can then save the PDF file with the name of your choice and in the destination directory of your choice. You should choose a directory on a disk where you know you have enough space. Once the download is complete, you can either navigate to the file on your hard disk and double click on it to open it in Adobe Acrobat Reader, or you can start your Adobe Acrobat Reader, choose file, then choose open, and then select the file to be opened.

Whether you open the PDF file for immediate viewing, or save it to disk first and then open it, the Adobe Acrobat Reader gives you the capability to print either selected pages or the entire publication. You can print to your desktop printer or any other printer that you can access from your workstation.

Most of our publications are offered as byteserving PDFs. Byteserving, also known as page-at-a-time or byte-range downloading, enables you to view a PDF file from a Web server before the entire file is downloaded. With byteserving, a range of bytes is served and displayed when requested, so you only need to wait until a section of the file downloads before you can view it. Without byteserving, you need to wait until an entire PDF file downloads before you can view it. If the PDF file is large, the delay may be significant depending on your Internet connection.

Our PDF files have bookmarks that you click to see a particular section of the book. When you click the bookmark, that section of the book is downloaded for viewing. Small sections will download more quickly than large sections, so you will experience some variation in the amount of time you wait depending on the size of the section you select.