The URL behind the Download link is temporary - please do not bookmark it. Based on system usage and the time of day, this link will expire as Thomas cleans up "old" searches.

To download the text of a Bill, select the "Save As" feature of your browser. In two of the most popular Web browsers, Netscape and Internet Explorer, the "Save As" feature appears under the "File" menu at the top of the screen.

For Windows-based browsers, selecting the "Save As" feature results in a dialog box which prompts you to choose the drive and path where you want to save the file. Unless you want to download the HTML codes (the "tags" that are used to format a Web page) along with the text, make sure you select "Plain Text" format under "Save as type." In Windows applications, you can name the file whatever you wish, but you should give the file a .txt extension to ensure you are saving the file as plain text, not HTML format. (Some browsers will supply the .txt extension automatically when you select the format type "Plain Text." Others require that you actually type the extension after the file name.) This plain text or "ascii" format is the "lowest common denominator" file format which can be read by virtually all applications. Once you have selected the path, file name, and format or "type," click on "OK" to save the text of the bill.

If you are using the Lynx text-based browser, choose p, the Print option. One of the print options available for users who are using Lynx from their own accounts (that is, so-called "non-anonymous users") is "Save to a local file." This option option allows you to save the text of the bill in plain text format into a file on your disk space. If you are using a copy of Lynx loaded on a remote server, any number of additional print options may also be available as configured by your system administrator.

Once you have saved the file to a local drive, you can then bring it up in your word processor or other application for further editing or manipulation.

For the balance of the 105th Congress, we are continuing to process the old ASCII txt version of the Bills. Here's the URL, using as an example of s1412:

ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/c105/s1412.is.txt

1. The "base" URL is: ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/c105/
2. The Bill Number is s1412.
3. You'll need to know the "version" of the Bill you're interested in. You can determine how many versions there are by searching for a Bill with THOMAS. In this example, it is "is" - Introduced in the Senate. For s1412, The Charitable Giving Incentive Act (Introduced in the Senate), we only have this one version.
4. All Bill URLs end in "txt".

As of the end of April, 1998, this directory, ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/c105, contains almost 9,000 files. Do not "list" the contents of this directory!! You'll tie up your machine (and a portion of our network bandwith) for quite a while.

We're planning to retire the ASCII text creation software at the end of the 105th Congress in favor of the HTML. We will continue to offer a predictable URL that will link to Bill Text information. For this example, the fixed URL is: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:S.1412.IS:

See http://thomas.loc.gov/home/example.html for more information and documentation.