As I have developed this web site, and we at St. Stephen's have started to make more use of electronic information, various users have mentioned problems that they have encountered. Many of these problems are related to software they are missing, or ways of configuring their system to work more effectively. On this page, I will discuss some of the issues I have heard about, and some ideas for solving them
If you have any questions about these tips, or have any other technical issue that you need help with, please send mail to . I'll do what I can to help out - I'd be glad to make a "house call" if you get really lost!
These tips are primarily directed at users of current versions of Microsoft Windows - say, Win98 or later. If you are using an older system, or a non-Microsoft system such as Linux, and are having problems, let me know and we'll try to find an answer.
When you get a computer, the screen is often configured to display at the lowest possible resolution. That makes everything look very large on the screen, and you have to scroll up and down, back and forth, to see everything on a page. Pictures and text tend to look "blocky." The Web, and word processors, tend to be especially hard to use at low resolution.
Most screens can be configured to use different levels of resolution. If you have not tried adjusting the resolution of you screen, you may find that changing it will make your system much more pleasant to use.
On most Windows systems, you can change the resolution using the following steps. Make sure you have saved any work you are doing before trying this, because you may end up having to re-boot the computer. Don't worry, though - you won't do any permanent damage!
Unless you have a very slow machine, you will probably want to choose the highest colour quality. If you move the "resolution" slider to the highest possible resolution, you will find that not all colour quality choices are available - there is a trade-off between resolution and colour quality. I suggest that you start out by choosing the highest resolution that lets you still use the highest colour quality.
If you change the resolution, text and pictures will appear smaller, but with better quality. If you find things are too small for your eyes, you can lower the resolution, using these instructions again. If you find things are too small in just a few programs - maybe your word processor, or the web browser - you can try changing the "zoom factor" for that program. The details vary, but almost all major programs have commands that let you increase the "zoom" or "magnification" to increase the size of the material without changing your screen settings. Most material will be easier to read if you increase the magnification rather than reduce the resolution.
[Top]On this website, the Newsletter is posted in "PDF" format. This is a special format that allows to make the picture on the screen look almost exactly the same as it would on paper. We are also using this format to distribute comittee minutes. This is a very popular format on the Web, used on many web sites. For example, government tax forms are distributed in this format.
In order to be able to look at documents in this format, you must have Adobe's Acrobat Reader® installed on your system. If you do not have this software, you can install it by clicking here.
After you reach the site, you have to select which language you want to use, and which version of Windows (or other system) you are using. You can also check a checkbox to get a version with special features - most people do not use these features very often, and it makes the file to be downloaded much larger, so you may not want to get them.
WARNING: This is a large file. If you are using a dial-up connection to the Internet, it may take up to an hour to transfer the file!
When the download starts, take careful note of the name of the file (it will start with AcroReader), and the name of the folder where it is placed. This information is shown in a panel when the download starts.
Once the download is complete, start up My Computer, go to the folder where the file was placed, and double-click on it. This will start an short installation process. Once it finishes, you will be able to read PDF files.
If you have any problem installing or using Acrobat Reader, please contact and we'll try to figure it out.
When using Acrobat Reader, you may find that text appears too large, or too small, on your screen. You can adjust the size by clicking on the little down-arrow beside the magnifying-glass icon near the top of the screen, and then clicking on "Zoom In" (to make it larger) or "Zoom Out" (to make it smaller).
[Top]Occasionally, we distribute information in Microsoft Word format. We intend to use PDF format as much as possible, but some material cannot be converted to that format conveniently.
If you do not have Microsoft Word installed on your system, this material will be hard to read. The most obvious problem is that the text of each paragraph will run off the side of the page. instead of being nicely formatted in lines. There will probably also be a lot of random symbols and other unreadable material, and you will not be able to see and pictures that may be included.
To solve this problem, you can install a free copy of "Microsoft Word Viewer." This is a free program from Microsoft, that allows you to read documents in Word format, but not change them. You can download this software by clicking here, and following the download instruction. As with Acrobat Reader (see above), the process is to download the file into a folder on your computer. Then, when the download is complete, use My Computer to locate the downloaded file and double-click on it. Again, if you have any problem with this, please let me know.
Another solution for this problem is to go to
OpenOffice.
That site offers a completely free substitute for Microsoft's Office Suite
of programs.
The programs there are almost completely compatible with Microsoft's products,
at a perfect price!
Please get in touch if there are any other technical issues related to this web site, that I may be able to help with.
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