"Top 9" Problems and Solutions |
| Problem |
Symptoms |
Solutions |
|
Printing a Web Page |
When you print one of our pages with text on it,
your printer cuts off the right side. |
- Our Land Patent Details and Search Results List
pages have "printer friendly" versions that re-format the
information to fit across one page, with no graphics.
Look for our printer icon near the top right of these two
pages to load the printer-friendly versions.
- For other pages, set your printer to Landscape mode.
On the printer window that comes up when you go to print,
you will most likely be able to select between
Portrait and Landscape. Portrait is the default, but
selecting Landscape will orient your page lengthwise
so it can hold the entire width.
|
| Printing a Document Image |
Your printer won't fit the whole picture on one page of paper, or
you have problems printing a GIF or TIFF format image. |
-
For printing document images, we strongly recommend using our
PDF format images and printing with the Adobe® Acrobat® Reader® (it's free).
Download Adobe Acrobat Reader.
- Most browsers won't correctly print our GIF image page. Use PDF and Adobe Acrobat Reader, instead.
- Many TIFF viewers have problems printing TIFF images. Use PDF and Adobe Acrobat Reader, instead.
|
| Printing a PDF Document |
You get a blank page, or an error message, when you print our Adobe Acrobat PDF documents. |
- Always print using the Acrobat toolbar's printer icon, not your browser's printer
icon or the browser's File | Print menu.
- Check your system for multiple versions of Acrobat, and remove any old ones.
Sometimes a previous version will remain on your system even though you have installed the latest
version.
- Uninstall Acrobat. Restart your system. Download Acrobat again and reinstall it. Restart your system.
- When you get the PDF document in your browser, use the "floppy disk" icon on the
Acrobat toolbar to save the PDF file. Find the saved file and double click on it. This will
launch the stand-alone version of Acrobat. Then try printing from Acrobat.
|
| Saving a Document Image |
You try saving from your browser's File menu, and have
unexpected results. Or, you can't figure out how to save
a TIFF or PDF file. |
- GIF: Most browsers will let you right click
on the GIF image to save it.
- PDF: Don't use your browser's File menu to save PDF images.
Instead, click the small "floppy disk" icon on the Acrobat toolbar.
- TIFF: Depends on your TIFF viewer. For recent versions of
CPC View, right click on the loaded image and select Document then Save
from the pop-up menu. For other viewers, check the viewer's documentation.
|
| No records for a State? or a County? or a common Last Name? |
You are looking for records from Iowa or Texas, or from a particular
county in another state, or a for common last name, but there seem
to be hardly any records. |
- GLO only has records for land that was originally
in the public domain, in the states in GLO's jurisdiction.
We do have a few records for other states
(for example, Texas); that's the only reason those states
are in the State list on the search page.
For resource links for states that have few or no records,
check our State Resources page.
- Many of our GLO land patents are not yet available on the web because
our project to process all of our documents is long term.
Iowa is a special case. We explain more about all
this here.
- For more information, contact our records keeping staff at
records@es.blm.gov.
|
| WebTV, Windows 3.1, Opera |
You are using a browser other than Internet Explorer or Netscape,
or an older operating system, and our site is behaving strangely. |
- The main functions of our site require
standard browsers on modern operating systems.
See our Supported Browsers page.
- Before you request technical support for unusual browsers or older
operating systems, please consider that with our limited resources we probably
have no real way to assist you.
|
The "Please Wait" page never goes away
New! |
Every search you try seems to go on forever. The Please Wait page just sits there. |
- If your document search takes longer than 80 seconds,
for our system to process, it will send you a warning message. If you wait 80 and you still
see the Please Wait page, then something on your system may have prevented the search
from starting at all.
- The most common cause for this problem seems to be ad blocking software. This type of
software can mistakenly think our search system is an advertisement. Try disabling or reconfiguring any
ad blocking software you may have installed on your system.
- If you do not have ad blocking software installed, then please contact our technical support at the
address at the bottom of this page.
|
| Unix, Pocket PCs, cell phones, new or unusual devices |
You are using a system other than a standard PC, running Windows or
Mac OS, and our site is behaving strangely. |
- Before you request technical support for platform compatibility issues,
please consider that with our limited resources we probably have no real way
to diagnose the problem.
- If it's available for your particular PC platform, we do recommend
trying Netscape 6 or higher, which generally has excellent
cross-platform comptibility
|
| Non-technical questions or problems |
"I can't find a particular patent..."
"Where is...?"
"What does this term mean?"
|
- Our records specialists, the folks who know the most about these kinds of questions,
can be contacted at
records@es.blm.gov.
- Use the technical support address below for questions like
"I got an error message" or "my search never finishes"
or "it keeps asking me for my zip code", or any time
you think there's something wrong with our site.
- If you are not sure which of our support addresses to use,
please don't hesitate to use either one.
|
