Reading and Printing PDF files


The Manuals for the Mjølner BETA System are now available in PDF format. A short description of the PDF format is given at the end of this document.

Adobe is distributing an application called the Adobe Acrobat Reader which is freely available directly from Adobe for most platforms (incl. Windows, Macintosh, Unix).

If this application is not currently installed on your system, ask your systems administrator to download it from Adobe, and install it on your system. When this is done, you should read the documentation which comes with the Acrobat software to configure it properly.


The following is a short checklist for UNIX users:

Configure Your WWW Browser

In case you use Netscape, you should do the following:
  1. Add the following line to the file called ".mime.types" located in your home directory (you might need to create the file):
       application/pdf pdf
  2. Add the following line to the file called ".mailcap" located in your home directory (you might need to create the file ):
      application/pdf; /usr/local/bin/acroread %s
    On you specific system, "acroread" might be located elsewhere - check with your systems administrator.
If you do not use Netscape, you might want to consult Acrobat and Helper Applications from Adobe for information on how to configure your WWW browser.

Configure X-Windows

In order to be able to print pages in the Acrobat Reader you need to add the following lines to the file called ".Xdefaults" located in your home directory:
  ! Acrobat Reader
  *acroread.lprCommand: /usr/local/bin/lpr
  *acroread.lprStyle: BSD
On you specific system, "lpr" might be located elsewhere - check with your systems administrator.

Configure the Acrobat Reader

Add the following lines to the file called ".cshrc" (or equivalent) located in your home directory:
  # For Adobe Acrobat Reader (mime.types, mailcap)
  setenv EXTENSIONMAPS /usr/local/lib

Restart X-Windows

To be sure that printing works you need to quit and restart X-Windows. (If you do not want to print pages from the manual yet, it may be sufficient to quit and restart your WWW browser - at least if your use Netscape.)

What is PDF?

PDF is a file format used to represent a document in a manner independent of the application software, hardware, and operating system used to create it. A PDF file contains a PDF document and other supporting data.

A PDF document contains one or more pages. Each page in the document may contain any combination of text, graphics, and images in a device- and resolution-independent format. This is the page description. A PDF document may also contain information possible only in an electronic representation, such as hypertext links.

In addition to a document, a PDF file contains the version of the PDF specification used in the file and information about the location of important structures in the file.

You can get access to different documentation on the PDF format and the Adobe Acrobat family of products for supporting the PDF format directly from Adobe.