I think it's quite useful to have both IE and Netscape installed on one machine
if doing a lot of web research. Both browsers have unique benefits and
drawbacks. Netscape doesn't require Active X plugins, for example, the problem
you are having with the EspaceNet PDF files. But Netscape doesn't provide clean
copy-and-pasting, a great need when transferring tables and graphics from web
pages.
I just tried viewing an Espacenet PDF file from my NT 4.0 workstation in
California, using both Netscape 4.61 and MS Internet Explorer 5, both of which
launch AAR 3.0. Both browsers launched the file OK. I suspect I may have the
ActiveX control required for IE5. Since AAR3 is no longer available for
download, you may solve the problem by installing Netscape. You will also have
Netscape to use if any future problem with IE5 arises.
hope this helps,
- Damian
____________________Reply Separator____________________
Subject: facsimile images of documents from Espacenet
Author: ktk@infoscitech.ca (INFOSCITECH - Kaminski Kazimierz)
Date: 9/15/99 9:18 PM
I visit occasionally the EspaceNet patent collection
(http://www.european-patent-office.org/espacenet/) and recently I tried to
download images of a few documents from their quite impressive database.
According to help file on the site, the images are in the PDF format and
warning is given that Adobe Acrobat Reader (AAR) is required to see and
print them. These days almost everybody has this piece of software
installed, and my computer is no exception to the rule. Moreover, it looks
like the Reader is automatically configured inside the browser (MS Internet
5.0 in my case) upon installation, so each time a PDF file is read by the
browser, the AAR is automatically fired up and shows the image inside the
browser's window. The whole process is completely transparent, i.e., no
action other than clicking on the link to the PDF file is required to see
its content on the screen, and I have _never_ encountered any exception to
this rule when surfing the Web.
Not the same at the EspaceNet Web site. Clicking on the link causes
something to be apparently downloaded, but AAR is _not_activated and a
little icon is displayed instead. Clicking on the icon opens an "object
handler error message" informing that there is no handler installed for the
downloaded object, even though the object itself is defined as
"application/pdf".
Quite naively, I deinstalled my AAR 3.01 and installed AAR 4.0, downloaded
from the Adobe Web site. Nothing has changed. Without configuring the newly
installed AAR, I could immediately see in my browser PDF files from around
the world, with the notable exception of EspaceNet.
So I went deeper into the EspaceNet's help file and in some rather obscure
place found a warning for users of MS Internet Explorer 4.x and higher, that
to "optimize the viewing" of facsimile images AAR is not good enough and
ActiveX Control for Adobe Acrobat has to be additionally installed. They
even provided a link for the downloading, but the page has disappeared from
the Web since the help file was posted. So I had a closer look at the Adobe
Web site, found the latest version of the required piece of software and
downloaded it, only to realize that it was apparently supposed to work with
AAR 3.x (which I duly deinstalled) and not with AAR 4.x (which I duly
installed). Becoming a bit desperate, I installed the ActiveX Control anyway
(in Reader folder of my AAR 4.0, as apparently required), but this has
changed nothing. As you may correctly suspect, AAR 3.x is no longer
available at the Adobe Web site.
Could somebody, please, tell me what went wrong and what should I do to
enjoy facsimile images of documents from the EspaceNet Web site? I do not
care if they are in PDF or any other format, as long as I can see and print
them. Many thanks in advance for your help.
Kazimierz T. Kaminski, Ph.D.
Patent Agent
InfoSciTech Information Consultants Inc.
tel.: (613)824-9076
fax: (613)824-9562
ktk@infoscitech.ca
http://www.infoscitech.ca