NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR
MANUFACTURING MANAGEMENT
Software requirements
Library
This library uses four types of software which are not included in standard browser software (Netscape or Internet Explorer) but which can be freely downloaded as "add-ins". These are
PDF (Acrobat) files,
Powerpoint presentations,
Real Player video files
Windows Media files
RTF files
PDF (Acrobat) files
If you don't have Acrobat Reader, you can download it from
the Adobe web site. 
It is free.
Powerpoint presentations
These are Powerpoint "shows" with the extension .pps
To see them you must have either Powerpoint or the Powerpoint Viewer
installed on your computer (the latter is available free from
Microsoft).
- To advance from one slide to the next, press the space bar or click the left mouse button.
- To stop a presentation, press the ESC key.
- To see a menu of options, click the right mouse button.
Videos
To watch the most recent videos can be watched using Windows
Media Player, which is included with all versions from Windows 98 onwards.
If you don't have it, you can get it from
Microsoft.
For earlier video presentations, you will need version 8
(or later) of Real Player. We stopped using Real Player, because of concerns
about its spyware nature. However the BBC has recently (March 2005)
persuaded Real Networks to produce a "clean" version of Real Player. This
version can be downloaded through
www.bbc.co.uk/radio/audiohelp_install.shtml You'll also need at least
16MB of RAM , and of course a sound card and speakers.
RTF documents
These can be opened with almost any modern word-processing software, including Microsoft Word, and Wordpad (which is included with Microsoft Windows). For documents that need to be printed, the RTF format is often more suitable than printing directly from the Web.