Thomson Science, part
of International Thomson Publishing, is an international publisher of books,
journals and electronic products in the scientific, medical and technical
fields.
Help!
You
will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to download PDF versions of journal articles.
This can be downloaded for free from the
Adobe
Acrobat Reader (WINDOWS) page,
Adobe
Acrobat Reader (MACINTOSH) page or
Adobe
Acrobat Reader (UNIX) page on the Adobe
Web
site.
To access the PDF versions
of full text articles please follow these instructions.
You should set up the
Acrobat reader as a plug-in 'helper application' to your browser to begin
with. If you're using Acrobat 3.0 reader, it should have done this automatically
and will open itself when you select a PDF document link. The older versions
of Acrobat Reader usually require you to configure this
manually.
For example, if you're
using an older version of the Acrobat reader (2.0, 2.1) with Netscape
on the PC:
Click
'Options', 'General Preferences' and select 'Helpers.'
Click 'Create New Type' then type 'application' in the MIME
type box, and 'pdf' in the MIME sub-type box. Now click OK,
and on the Helpers screen, select 'Launch the application', 'Browse'
and use the file manager screen that pops up to find the ACROREAD.EXE
file. Double click on that file to make sure that the filename
appears in that 'launch the application' box. Now click
OK.
That should have set
up Netscape to launch the Acrobat reader. |
An example
of downloading a PDF: |
Frames-capable
browsers |
Non-frames
capable browsers |
If you open your
browser and type the URL
http://www.currentopinion.com,
and then click on 'Current Opinion in Neurology', this will take you into
Current Opinion in Neurology. Several different frames will appear inside
your browser window.
Click on the button
down the left hand side which says 'Articles': this will make a contents
page for the journal appear in the main screen, showing all the issues available
online.
Click on any 'Free Sample' issue
link to take you to the contents page for that issue, then click on your
chosen paper's title. This will bring up the abstract in the main window.
Click on the abstract's hypertext-linked title to download the PDF file for
that article. Once the article has loaded from the Internet your Acrobat
reader should pop up and show you the article exactly as it looks in the
printed journal. |
If you open your
browser and type the URL
http://www.rapidscience.com/nu/default.html
this will take you into Current Opinion in Neurology. Select the 'non-frames
version' link to jump to the Current Opinion in Neurology journal home page.
Scroll to the bottom of the screen and you'll see a series of links to other
pages. Click on the 'Articles' link: this will make a contents page for the
journal appear in the main screen, showing all the issues available
online.
Click on any 'Free Sample'
issue link to take you to the contents page for that issue, then click on
your chosen paper's title. This will bring up the abstract in the main window.
Click on the abstract's hypertext-linked title to download the PDF file for
that article.
Once the article has
loaded from the Internet your Acrobat reader should pop up and show you the
article exactly as it looks in the printed journal. |
What
to do if you have problems downloading PDF files |
There
are several reasons why PDF files of journal documents may not appear to
have downloaded properly. To begin with, you should make sure that you have
a properly installed version of the Acrobat Reader program. If this seems
to have installed properly, check that your browser is correctly configured
to read PDF files. It does this by launching the Acrobat Reader program as
a plugin or helper application.
This help file contains instructions
on how to configure Acrobat Reader manually with version 2 or lower of Netscape.
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Please refer
to the Adobe website for detailed guidance
on setting up and |
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troubleshooting
Acrobat Reader with other browsers. |
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If you have reached
the abstract for which you want to download the full text article in PDF
format and the abstract has displayed properly in your browser, click on
the hypertext-linked title of the abstract to begin to download the PDF file
of this article. Some browsers may ask you if you wish to open or save the
PDF document at this point. If you see this prompt, it is advisable to save
the document to a local drive rather than opening it directly within
your browser or the Reader program. Saving to disk will put less strain on
your computer's resources than attempting to start the Acrobat Reader in
addition to your browser. This method is less likely to cause your computer
to hang or crash than attempting to run the Acrobat Reader software at the
same time as your Web browser. Remember where you save the file, and you
can read it offline at a later time using just the Acrobat Reader
program. |
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The PDF file appears
to have downloaded properly but when I try to view it I |
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cannot see, or
print, the figures within the article. |
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This is caused by
a lack of system memory: you may also notice that your browser content suddenly
changes colours, or begins to dither certain colours. To get around this
problem, try to free up system resources by clearing your browser cache (in
Netscape: Options, Network Preferences, Clear Memory/Disk Cache Now
- in Internet Explorer: View, Options..., Advanced tab, Temporary Internet
files, View... then select and delete) and any temporary files which
your computer may be storing in Trash, Recycling Bin, or a temporary Windows
directory. ALWAYS close any other applications (especially Word, Excel,
email clients etc.) before attempting to view a large PDF file.
If this problem persists, use
your browser to go to the abstract page and click on the title with the RIGHT
mouse button. Choose 'Save Target As...' or Save Link as...'
to save the PDF file to disk: once it has downloaded you can close your browser
and all other applications, start the Acrobat Reader and view (File,
Open...) the PDF file offline. |
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I try to download
a PDF file using Internet Explorer with Acrobat Reader 3,
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but all I see
is a blank white page |
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You may find that
IE does not give you a status message telling you 'Opening [filename]...'
immediately. Due to the large size of some of the journal articles, you may
find that they takes several minutes to download. Please be patient. You
should see that the Reader starts up within the browser window after a few
seconds, and then the status message should appear as the paper begins to
display in your Reader. |
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I've
waited for the PDF file to appear but nothing seems to
happen |
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Some browsers will
'time out' (close the Internet connection to the article) if the article
takes too long to download. Try again at a different time of day when both
the server and the Internet are less busy. Some of the largest articles in
the database (Journal of Materials Science for example, or anything with
large numbers of halftones) may take ten minutes to download fully: please
be patient. |
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I get a 'Not Found'
message in my browser or 'Error opening document'
message |
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in Acrobat Reader
after the article has downloaded. Why is this? |
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Both of these messages
signify server or file problems; please fill in a PDF
problem report form and we'll try to rectify the problem as soon as
possible. |
Contact
Us
-
To contact us for any
assistance or for information pertaining to journals please email
us at
-
For information pertaining
to books please contact
-
To subscribe to
a printed or online journal, for journals pricing information or subscription
queries please contact
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