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Viewing & printing

Viewing and printing articles

Articles in electronic journals can be presented in several formats, usually either HTML (HyperText Markup Language) or PDF (Portable Document Format).

HTML is the usual format for Web pages. Articles in HTML do not require any special software for viewing and incorporate hyperlinks (links to other relevant documents or web-sites).

PDF documents are graphical images. They are often used for articles which are also available in print format so that what you see on screen and print out is exactly the same format and layout as you would see in a printed journal.

To view a PDF file, you will need special software such as an Adobe Acrobat Reader. All computers in SOAS have this software installed and it should launch automatically when you select to view an article in PDF. If you do not have the software on your computer it is freely available to download from Adobe.

Please note: PDF files are large and may take several minutes to download depending on the speed of your network connection, the computer you are using and the file size of the document you are printing. If it is slow, try printing one page at a time or saving the file to disk before printing.

Articles from JSTOR

When viewing articles on JSTOR you are viewing an image even though the articles can be searched for keywords. JSTOR chose this method of display as a means of faithfully reproducing the journal, but it also means that text cannot be copied and pasted.

To print out an article you need to follow the online instructions. Click on “Print” and by default you can “Proceed with printing” via a PDF reader such as Adobe (see above).

If the computer you’re using is not connected to a network printer you can download articles by following these instructions:

1. Click on Download

2. Point browser over economy print and click on the RIGHT hand mouse button.

3. Select “save target/link as”.

4. Save to the “a” drive and rename with extension .pdf e.g. jstor.pdf

5. To print or read the file must be opened in Adobe Acrobat viewer.