Many files on the CPOL website end in .PDF - this means they are available in the Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format files. Acrobat files can be read on your computer screen, or printed, using the Adobe Acrobat Reader   available free from Adobe. The Adobe Acrobat Home Page contains detailed information on this product, and allows you to download free copies of Acrobat for Windows, Macintosh, or UNIX systems.
When you are on the download page at Adobe, be sure to select Acrobat Reader with Search capability - this will allow you to do searches on the PDF documents available on CPOL.

If you are having problems opening these files please do the following.

• Make sure you have the latest Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in version. Click here to download the latest Adobe Reader plug-in. If you think you have the Acrobat plug-in but are still unable to view Acrobat content on this Web site you may need a more recent version of the plug-in!
  
  
• Make sure you have successfully installed the Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in. JUST DOWNLOADING THE FILE DOES NOT INSTALL THE PLUG-IN! After you download the plug-in you must go to the location where you downloaded the file on your local hard drive and double-click on the executable file (.exe file) to install the plug-in to your browser. This is a self extracting file that will launch an installation program to install the plug-in. Follow the instructions provided by the installation program to complete the installation of the plug-in to your browser. Once you have installed the plug-in, close all current Internet browser sessions and start a new Internet browser session. This will reload the new version of the plug-in.
  
  
• Make sure the PDF file has been successfully downloaded before opening the file. Some of the PDF files are large and will download slowly. The file must be downloaded completely before it can be opened.
  
  

As of November 2003, the current Acrobat reader is Version 6.0

Note that with versions of the Reader prior to 3.0, you cannot save a PDF file to your local disk after you have read it. You had to have the commercial Adobe Acrobat software in order to save the file. This limitation was removed with version 3.0 of the Reader software.

If you wish to create your own Acrobat files, you will need to purchase the commercial Adobe Acrobat package.

Current Adobe Solutions for the Disability Community:
Since 1997, Adobe has offered web-based services at  http://access.adobe.com  that enable sight-impaired users to convert Adobe PDF files into formats, including HTML and plain text, that screen readers can understand. Adobe has also developed a plug-in for Acrobat for Windows that provides similar functionality on a user's local system

Note: you may choose to have a .pdf document translated to ascii text and emailed to you. Simply mail the URL (web address) of the PDF document in the body of an email message to pdf2txt@adobe.com (for plain text) or to pdf2html@adobe.com (for HTML).

No plug-ins or alterations to your browser are needed to do this. You will receive the converted results in the body of a new mail message to you in a matter of minutes. Note that this technique works for nearly all .pdf files you may find on the web. More information on .pdf to text conversion via email can be found at http://access.adobe.com/access_email.html

For more information, go to the Adobe Acrobat Website.