Fire Services Examinations Board

Help

What are PDF files? - Problems with PDF files

What are PDF files and how do I use them?

PDF (Portable Document Format) is a standard format for documents (computer files) which allows them to be viewed and printed on most types of computer using freely available software. Once installed on your computer, the software, called the Acrobat Reader, lets you open a PDF file, view it on screen, browse through the document and print it.

When you retrieve ("download") a document, the time taken is proportional to the size of the file. The PDF files on this web site have their sizes quoted in either MB or KB. 1MB = 1,000 KB (approx.) A typical computer fitted with a standard modem will take about 4 minutes to transfer a file 1MB in size. You can use this figure to estimate the time required to download any particular file. When downloading a large file, it may appear that your computer is doing nothing whereas, in fact, it is retrieving the file. It is easy to be caught out by this behaviour if you are not used to it! Some additional hints are given below to help with problems people occasionally encounter in retrieving PDF files.

If you do not already have the Acrobat Reader on your computer you can download it and install it now by clicking here . The software is provided by Adobe free of charge and is available for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and other types of computer system.

Problems with PDF files

Here we give solutions to two common problems which people encounter when opening PDF files in their web browser.

1: Internet Explorer says "Done" before it has downloaded the document

The Microsoft Internet Explorer tends to display the message "Done" in the status bar (at the bottom of the browser window) almost immediately after you have clicked on a link to a PDF file even though it hasn't yet had time to download the file. The browser may simply show a blank page at this point giving the misleading impression that it has tried and failed to download the document. A good clue is the logo near the top right corner of the browser window. If the logo is changing then the browser is still downloading the document, regardless of the message in the status bar.

Solution: Check the logo near the top right corner of the browser window. If it is changing then the document is still being downloaded and you must wait until the logo stops changing. Large documents can take several minutes to download. A 56K modem needs about 1 minute to download a 250KB document or about 4 minutes to download a 1MB document. A slower modem or slow Internet connection will require proportionately more time.

2: All I get is a blank page!

If the browser still displays a blank page even after the logo has stopped changing then this could be due to a communication error. Often, reloading the document doesn't help. It is as though the browser has an erroneous version of the PDF file "stuck in its memory" and refuses to download it afresh.

Solution:

Go back to the page containing the link to the PDF file.
Right click (i.e. click with the right hand button of the mouse) on the link to the PDF file.
Choose Save Target As (or, in Netscape, Save Link As ) from the pop-up menu. A Save As dialogue box should appear.
Select the folder on your computer in which you want to save the file then click the Save button. A file download box indicating the progress of the download should appear.

Once the download has completed you should be able to open the PDF file and view it without using the web browser or connecting to the Internet.

This page last updated: 28 March 2002