TIPS FOR USING PDF FILES

Since most of Physics: Power Tools for Problem Solving is in PDF, here are some tips for using these files.

STATUS OF THE PAGE — It was written in late 2005, so I'm not sure how accurate it is now, in 2010.  But you probably know "the usual tricks" for using new software:  explore the menus to discover the options, and try clicking the buttons to see what happens.  Below is what I wrote 5 years ago.

      First, get Acrobat Reader (or a newer version of it) from Adobe.

      When you click on Chapter 2 it will open in a new window — either in a browser window or directly in Acrobat Reader, depending on the settings in your browser's PREFERENCES (*) — and you can see its magnification (125%) in a small window in the bar above the page.  You can "zoom" the page to make it smaller or bigger by clicking the "-" or "+" button to the left or right of this window.  Other viewing options are further to the left on the bar, so click and see what happens.
      On the right side of the bottom-bar, the two arrows work like the BACK-button and FORWARD-button of your browser, based on the history of the pages you've viewed.   On the left side, the four symbols are history-independent and (from left to right) they'll take you to the first page of the file, or one page backward (like from 7 to 6), one page forward (from 7 to 8), or to the last page of the file.
      * To check your browser settings, in... [I'll finish this when I'm on campus looking at browsers, probably IE for Windows, Safari for Mac, Firefox for both]
      If your page is opened directly in Acrobat Reader, in the View-menu you can choose between Continuous Scrolling and [I'll finish this when I'm on campus and can see the symbols]  And with Version 6.0 or 7.0 you can choose to have the "Table" visible or not.

      The usual options (to save, print, email, search,...) are available on the top-bars or by using menus.  The tool for "Select Text" will work with the "unfinished" files in the book (7, 9, 12, 13, 15) since they're text-based, but not with most chapters (1, 2, 3, 4,...) since they're graphics, not text.