Printing Help

For better control of printing documents from the AeroFlight Tech Data Regulations and Maintenance Libraries, it is usually necessary to download and install certain third party software on your computer.

Some browsers may already have the capability of printing the files directly, but that is usually not the case. For example, current versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape's Communicator cannot handle the print files directly.

The following instructions are split into three parts. The first part is used to download and install the software on your computer. The second part is split into three sections that are specific for particular browsers and versions. These are Internet Explorer, Netscape 4.79, and Netscape 7.0. Other versions should be roughly the same. Finally, the third part provides some tips on printing using this software.

The software to install is free software that is available from The University of Wisconsin's Computer Science Department.

There are two pieces of software to install. The first software is called Ghostscript and the second is called GSView. The main web page for this software may be found at http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/

1. Download AFPL Ghostscript installation program. If you are using a WIndows machine, you may download it from

ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/AFPL/gs854/gs854w32.exe

If you are using a different operating system, please go to the following web page and see if your computer's operating system is listed.

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/AFPL/get800.htm

When downloading the software, make sure you save it somewhere on your disk drive where you can easily find it. You can usually run it directly by selecting "Open" or "Run this program from the current location" instead of "Save" on the dialog box that opens up.

2. Run the AFPL Ghostscript installation program. If you saved the program to your disk drive, the easiest method to run it is to use "My Computer" to locate the program and then click on it.

The extraction program asks a few questions such as which directory to install the software in. The default directory is C:\GS. It is usually best to accept the default location.

3. Download the GSView software. Note, this is for Windows users only. If you are using something else, please fer to the Ghostscript page at The University of Wisconsin's Computer Science Department at

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/

For Windows users, download

ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/ghostgum/gsv48w32.exe

As in the case of downloading AFPL Ghoscript, you may select "Open" or "Run this program from the current location" to proceed directly to the next step.

4. Run the GSView installation program. The GSView installation is fairly similar to the AFPL Ghostscript installation. However, the default installation location on the disk drive is "C:\Program files\ghostgum".

The second step depends largely on which browser you are using. The choices shown here are:

Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6.0
Netscape Communicator 4.79
Netscape Communicator 7.0

If you are using a different version, you can use the following instructions as a guide.

Internet Explorer 6.0

If you use Internet Explorer, no further action is required to configure the browser to use the Ghostscript and GSView software

Netscape 4.79

Configuring Netscape 4.79 to use the software is a bit more complicated than for Internet Explorer 6.0.

When you first select a PostScript document to print, Netscape 4.79 does not know that it should use GSView to print the document. It pops up a dialog box asking whether you want to pick an Application to use to interpret the software, to save the file to disk, or to cancel the request. You may also click on a box for more information.

Click on the button labeled "Pick App ...".

You should now see a dialog box asking you to choose a viewer. There are two ways to do this.

If you installed the software in the default location on your C drive, you may enter

C:\Program Files\Ghostgum\gsview\gsview32.exe

in the dialog box and press the "OK" button.

Alternatively, you can press the "Browse" button, click on the C drive folder icon, then on the Program Files folder, then the Ghostgum folder, then the gsview folder, and finally on the gsview32.exe item.

Netscape 7.0

The procedure for configuring Netscape 7.0 is similar to the procedure for Netscape 4.79, but there are a few differences.

As in Netscape 4.79, the first time you select a Postscript document to print, Netscape 7.0 needs to be told to use GSView to handle the document. But the dialog box that pops up to ask about it is a little different.

In the dialog box, click on the "Advanced" button. You should see a dialog box labeled "New Type" with "Description of type" as "PostScript" and "File extension" as "ps". If you installed the software in the usual location, you may enter

C:\Program Files\Ghostgum\gsview\gsview32.exe

in the text box labeled "Application to use".

Alternatively, you can click on the "Choose..." button, locate the "Program Files\Ghostgum\gsview" directories in the file box and then select the gsview32.exe program.

Using GSView to print

When printing, select the printer icon at the bottom of the screen. From the list of items that appears, select the items you want to print. In the case of Airworthiness Directives, you may select individual ADs to print or you may print out all the ADs for a model or even a manufacturer by checking the box to the side of the model number or the manufacturer.

When the dialog box shows up asking what to do with the document, select "Open", "Open using gsview.exe", or "Run this program from the current location".

Once the print file has been retrieved, a registration box appears. You may ignore the box or you may register if you wish. At least, if you register, you shouldn't be pestered by registration questions every time you wish to print a file. (I've never registered and so I'm not sure what pleasant things happen when you register.)

You may review the print file before printing. The program displays only one page at a time. You may press the arrow keys on the top to move to lower (left arrow) or higher (right arrow) numbered pages.

You may print the document by clicking on "File" and selecting "Print" or you may click on the "Print" icon below the menu line.