MIT SDEP Help Page


We have help on a few topics. If you have other questions, want to suggest more topics for our help page, or just want to comment on our pages contact us at webmasters@sysdyn.mit.edu.


Adobe Acrobat Documents

Many of the documents that you can download from our site are in Portable Document Format (PDF) which is viewable with the Adobe Acrobat Reader. More complete instructions are available from the Adobe Web Site, but here are the basics. To view the documents you will have to do three things:
  1. Download the free Reader You will have to download the Adobe Acrobat Reader from the Adobe site. It is available for Windows, DOS, Macintosh, SunSPARC, HP, SGI, and AIX machines.
  2. Configure the Reader as a "helper application" for your web browser. You should set up your web browser so that it recognizes Acrobat documents when you download them. Thus your web browser will know where to find your reader when you want to view pdf documents on the web.
  3. Download the document. Having set up your browser and reader, all you have to do is download the PDF document you want to read from our site.
If, after following these instructions, you are still having trouble, you can contact us at webmasters@sysdyn.mit.edu

Email Enclosures

The way to enclose a file into a mail message may differ depending on your computer and software you are using. Here are some instructions:

If you are using Eudora mailer

Regardless of whether you are using Eudora or Eudora Pro for either a PC or a Macintosh, you can use Attach Document... option in the Message menu. After that, you have to select the file with the model you are submitting, and then send the mail. You can include your additional information in your mail message before you send it.

In your Settings... dialog box (invoked from Special menu), in the Attachments setting pane, you can select one of several encoding schemes (uuencoding, MIME, binhex, or others). It is not important which encoding scheme you are using. However, if you are using a Macintosh, we recommend you check Always include Macintosh information checkbox before sending the mail with the attached file.

If you are using TechMail mailer for the Macintosh

In this case, you can use Enclose Binhex... option from Message menu. After selecting the file with the model you are submitting, you can submit your model, with the additional information in the body of the mail message.

If you are using TechMail mailer for PC

Unfortunately, TechMail for PCs doesn't have a way to enclose attachments into mail messages. You will have to use another program to encode your message in either MIME or uuencode format. We will soon provide a utility program for encoding on our server.

Once you have encoded the file you want to submit, you can send the encoded file from TechMail by choosing Insert File... from the Message menu. You should insert your additional information at the very beginning of your message, before the encoded file.

If you are using Netscape Mail

If you are using Netscape Mail, you can attach files by selecting Attach button (in some versions of Netscape, this button has a paperclip drawn on its face) and selecting the file. Please make sure that you attach a file, and not a URL, and that you send the file As is (or as Source, in some versions of Netscape). After you write your additional comments in the body of the mail message, you can submit the message to us.

If you have a dial-up account on a UNIX system, and are using a terminal-style mailer

In this case, your options will vary from situation to situation. Please contact your system administrator for details. In general, you will have first to upload the model to your account, and then send it using a UNIX mailer, such as Pine or Elm. Your system administrator or help desk will be able to provide you with the necessary information.

If you are using an Intenet provider's services, and are not using one of the above mailers

Please ask your Internet provider's technical support for details about sending enclosures in email. As soon as we manage to get some trial accounts with various Internet providers, we shall put the provider-specific instructions on this page.

If you are not using any of the above

Please use your software manuals and technical support. Should that fail, feel free to send an email to rm-help@sysdyn.mit.edu , and we shall attemp to help you to the best of our abilities.

BinHex and .SEA Documents

In order to provide access to our files for the largest possible range of internet users, we have made all compressed archives for the Macintosh available as binhex files. These are text files which can be decoded into binary files once they have been loaded on your machine. After a BinHex file has been decoded, you will have either the document file that you requested, or, a .sea file which contains the files that you requested. ".sea" files are self extracting archives. This means that several files have been compressed together into this archive for convenience. To decompress a ".sea" file, simply double click on it and it will do the rest.

If you have any problems, please email us at webmasters@sysdyn.mit.edu


PC Self Extracting Archives

Some of the files in Road Maps are available as self extracting archives for the PC. These archives end with the extension ".exe". The convenience of this is that with the download of a single file, the user can receive an entire chapter of Road Maps papers, models, or other files. To extract the contents of the file, simply run it under DOS or double click on it to run it under windows.

If you have any problems, please email us at webmasters@sysdyn.mit.edu


Saving PDF Files Using Netscape

If you are using the Netscape browser which includes the Acrobat viewer, you should be aware of a potential problem with saving Acrobat files. To save an Acrobat file that you have been viewing under Netscape, choose "Save As" from the file menu. The dialog box which appears will give two options for formats to save the document in. These are "Text," and "Source." Always choose "Source" for Acrobat (pdf) files. The "Text" option will leave the file in a format which the Acrobat reader will not properly recognize.

If you have any problems, please email us at webmasters@sysdyn.mit.edu


MIT SDEP Home | Help | Comments | Index

Page address: http://sysdyn.mit.edu/help.html

Created: Mar 3, 1996
Updated: Jan 12, 2000
Page maintained by webmasters@sysdyn.mit.edu
Comments and questions are always welcome.