PDF Requirements

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Hardware requirements

There are no special hardware requirements to get access to Palgrave Macmillan Journals online: Just a computer - either PC, Mac or UNIX-based system - and a connection to the Internet. That might be a connection via your company or university network or a dial-up connection by modem or ISDN.

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Browsers

A web browser like Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer is the basic software tool you need. We strongly recommend the recent versions (4.7 or higher) of Netscape Navigator or (5.0 or higher) Microsoft Internet Explorer. You can download them from the companies' servers. Both are free of charge at the moment for private use.

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Portable Document Format (PDF)

The full text of Palgrave Macmillan Journals articles, papers and other editorial content is available as either text with illustrations or in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). PDF provides a richer environment than text and also allows materials to be printed exactly as the author(s) intended.

You should be aware that documents held in PDF format are typically much larger than simple text files. If you are connected via a slow modem over a telephone line, you should consider the likely download time before attempting to retrieve such documents. The Adobe Acrobat plugin needed to view PDF documents is available free.

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How to install Adobe Acrobat Reader

To view full text articles in PDF format you need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your system. Acrobat Reader is available free from the Adobe website:


Download the Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Follow the steps on the Adobe web page to install Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Once Adobe Acrobat Reader has been installed, Netscape and Explorer will automatically start the Reader and display PDF documents.

Saving a file to your hard disk allows you to later display the page's information without any network connection. Choose "Save as" from the file menu while connected. The browser will automatically detect the correct file format to save in. Simply navigate to the directory in which you wish to save the file, and click "Save". While downloading larger files (such as articles in PDF format) in the background, you can do other work on your computer. To get a hard copy of an article just click the print button on your browser.

You might also want to configure Acrobat Reader for your special needs. The most important options are:

  • Display large images. This feature displays large images without replacing them as grey boxes. That requires many bytes of storage and might take a long time to display. To set this option, open Acrobat Reader, click File, Preferences, General. Look for the "Display Large Images" box and click the checkbox next to it. Click OK.
  • Greek text below [____] pixels. All characters smaller then the chosen size are displayed as grey lines. Increasing this size speeds page display for quick orientation. To set this option, open Acrobat Reader, click File, Preferences, General. Look for the "Greek Text Below [__] Pixels" box and click the checkbox next to it. The default setting is 6 pixels. Change this if you prefer. Click OK.
  • Substitution Fonts controls which multiple master fonts Acrobat Reader substitutes for fonts that are not available on your system. Change this value if you have problems viewing characters in the document. To set this option, open Acrobat Reader, click File, Preferences, General. Look for the "Substitution Fonts" drop-down box and select your font of choice. The default font is Sans Serif. Change this if you prefer. Click OK.
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Configuring your system for better viewing

PDF documents can be comfortably viewed on a correctly configured system. For best viewing it is recommended that a computer's screen resolution be set to 1024 X 768 or 1280 X 960 pixels.

On a Windows 95 or Windows 98 system the screen resolution may be changed by opening the Display control panel (Start button to Settings to Control Panels, or right-click on the desktop), selecting the Settings tab, and moving the Desktop Area cursor to the appropriate resolution. If the cursor will not move to the appropriate resolution the system's hardware will have to be upgraded to support it.

On a Macintosh, From the Apple menu the Monitors control panel may be selected, and, from Options, the appropriate screen resolution selected, if it is available. If not, the hardware will have to be upgraded to support the appropriate resolution.

On UNIX workstations an X server configuration file will have to be edited to support the appropriate screen resolution. Contact your system administrator for information on how to change this setting.

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Configuring the caching on your browser

In order to speed things up, browsers use a technology called caching, or temporary storage of materials that have already been displayed so those materials do not have to be downloaded again if they have not changed recently. So, if you have caching enabled on your browser, your browser will check to see if it already has a cached copy of an article from Palgrave Macmillan Journals before it tries to download it again.

We recommend that caching be enabled on all browsers for use with Palgrave Macmillan Journals.

To enable your cache on Netscape v. 4.7:

  • From the Edit menu, select "Preferences."
  • Select "Advanced", then "Cache."
  • In "Disk Cache" type 2500 "kBytes."
  • In "Memory Cache" type 1500 "kBytes."
  • Select the button "Once per session."
  • Select "ok."

To enable your cache on Internet Explorer v. 5.0:

  • From the Tools menu, select "Internet Options."
  • In the "General" section, look for "Temporary Internet files" and click "Settings"
  • Check "Every time you start Internet Explorer"
  • Move the sliding bar to the left, until the display reads "1 MB"
  • Click "OK"
  • Click "OK"

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