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Downloading files

Throughout this website, files for download are marked with the file type and size (in kilobytes) to help you estimate download time. Unless you have a very fast Internet connection, you should assume it will take approximately one second per kilobyte. Clicking on a link to a file will open it in a new browser window.

To save a file to your hard drive:

In order to view or edit a file, you will need the appropriate software installed on your computer, as outlined below.

Portable document format (PDF)

You will require a PDF reader to view and print PDF files. Adobe's Acrobat Reader can be downloaded free-of-charge from the Adobe website.

Users without reader software can convert most PDFs into text or HTML using Adobe's online conversion tools.

Some of our PDF files, such as Chinese curriculum materials, contain Asian fonts. If you are using Acrobat Reader 5.0 and receive error messages when opening these files, we suggest that you install the appropriate Asian font pack from the Adobe website.

Microsoft® Office

To view and print Microsoft Word (.doc), Excel (.xls) and PowerPoint (.ppt/.pps) files, you will need either Microsoft Office, or the Microsoft Office viewers. The viewers can be downloaded for free from the Microsoft website:

To edit these file types, you will require the full version of the appropriate Office software, or another application that can edit Office documents. (Note: Formatting and functionality may be lost when editing in non-Microsoft applications.)

Some of our Word documents for curriculum materials contain Asian fonts. To ensure these files display correctly, we recommend you install UnionWay AsianSuite.

Zip files

We use zip files (.zip) to package together multiple files and decrease the file size for downloading. To open a zip file, you will need a compression utility such as WinZip (the trial version can be downloaded for free). Many computers come with one pre-installed. If yours doesn't, you can search the Web for a program - try entering "extract zip file" in a search engine.

Last updated: 1 May 2008

Related information

Print documents any size you want, regardless of the original page size.