Adobe Acrobat Reader is a free piece of software for viewing files in .pdf format that can be downloaded for free from http://www.adobe.com

Macintosh Users:

Adobe Acrobat can only be run as a plug-in to your web browser. There is no additional configuration of Adobe Acrobat Reader required. The following instructions only apply to PC users.

PC Users:

Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0 and above can be configured to run as a plug-in to your browser or as a helper application.

Adobe Acrobat as a plug-in

When Adobe Acrobat Reader is configured to run as a browser plug in, it will automatically open .pdf files in your web browser.

Adobe Acrobat as a helper application

When Adobe Acrobat Reader is configured to run as a helper application, any time you try to link to a pdf file from you web browser, you will be prompted to select whether you want to open or download the file.

How to configure Internet Explorer to use an Acrobat 4.0 viewer as a helper application:

Note: The next time you select a link to a PDF file in Internet Explorer, a dialog box will appear that asks what you would like to do with the file. If you select "Open this file from its current location," Internet Explorer will open the PDF file in your Acrobat viewer as a helper appliction. If you select "Save this file to disk," Internet Explorer will save the PDF file to your hard disk, from where you can open it later.

For more information about the general preferences in your Acrobat 4.0 viewer, refer to the Acrobat 4.0 User Guide or the Acrobat Reader 4.0 User Guide.