Specifications

SOLUTIONS
page again—and you will be able to create
PDF files whenever you want! To use
PDF995 without the display of ads requires
registration ($9.95), but try it for free first.
C
ONN CLISSMAN
It’s possible to design a Web page with style
sheets that will format it one way for display
and another way for printing, with each style
optimized for its destination.
Another common technique is
to provide a link to a printer-
friendly version of a given
page; click the Print link on a
PCmag.com article and you’ll
get the whole article on a
single page, formatted nicely
for printing. But all too many
pages are designed with no
thought at all for the possibili-
ty that someone might want
to print them.
PDF995 is one of many
utilities, free and otherwise,
that create
PDF files by means
of a simulated printer driver
(see “
PDFing Cheap,” August 5,
page 95). As noted, to turn any
printable document into a
PDF file, you simply
send it to the simulated printer. There’s defi-
nitely extra effort involved—in effect you have
to print the page twice—so you may actually
want to try printing directly to your printer in
landscape mode first. But the result is much
more useful than a printed page with the last
half of each line missing.
If you happen to have Adobe Acrobat 6.0,
you can also use the Open Web Page com-
mand to convert the file to
PDF. The differ-
ence, which may or may not be an advantage,
is that the page will be captured exactly as it
appears on screen. (
IE tends to remove back-
grounds and change text to black to make
pages print faster and more readable.) Acro-
bat automatically scales pages and can even
fit an entire Web page on one sheet.—
NJR
Put Google in IE’s Search Bar
In “Change IE’s Default Search Engine”
(User to User, May 27, page 74), you explain
how to set Internet Explorer’s default
search engine. But there’s a quicker way if
you want to make Google your default.
Enter www.google.com/google.reg in the
address bar of
IE. In the File Download
window choose Open. Click on Yes when
you’re prompted to merge
the file into the Registry,
and OK to clear the confir-
mation afterward. The
next time you click on the
Search icon on the tool-
bar, the Google search
field will appear in the
side window.
G
EORGE I. RODRIGUEZ
This tip is especially useful
because the Customize
Search Settings dialog
mentioned in the earlier
article does not include
Google in its list. But if you
type the specified
URL
directly into the address
bar, there’s a possibility your browser will
simply open the
REG file as it would a text
file, right in the browser window. You’ll be
better off paying a visit to www.google.com/
options/defaults.html. This page has a link to
the google.reg file, and clicking that link will
definitely get the results described above.
The page also includes tips for making
Google the default engine in other browsers,
and it even offers another
REG file that re-
stores your IE options to the way they
were.—
NJR
Creating File Shortcuts on
CD-ROM
I have pictures from nine families that I
want to put on a
CD. I’ve given each
family its own folder. Many of the pic-
tures have members of multiple families
in them. I’d like to put copies of those in
each folder but that puts me over the
capacity of a
CD. If I put a picture file in
one folder, is there a way to put a pointer
or shortcut to it in the other folders? It’s
easy on a
PC
, but when I burn a disc, the
shortcuts still point to the
PC drive where
the original file is located.
R
ICHARD ALEXANDER
Using regular file shortcuts will cause prob-
lems. Even if you create shortcuts pointing to
the files already on the
CD and then burned
those shortcuts, you have a problem when
the recipient’s
CD drive isn’t assigned to the
same letter as yours. Instead, try creating a
very simple
HTML file containing relative links
to all the photos. You can place this file in the
root directory of the
CD, so that all recipients
can use it as an index to the entire
CD, or you
can create separate index files for each family.
You can create the
HTML file using Notepad.
Assuming you have laid out the entire con-
tents of the
CD on your hard drive before
burning, you can even test the
HTML file right
on the hard drive. The file might look like this:
<HTML>
<BODY>
<H1>Family Pictures</H1>
<H2>Hatfield Family</H2>
<P><A HREF=”file://wedding\BobCarol
.jpg”>Bob and Carol wedding</A> </P>
<P><A HREF=”file://hatfields\Alice
.jpg”>Alice</A> </P>
<H2>McCoy Family</H2>
<P><A HREF=”file://wedding\BobCarol
.jpg”>Carol and Bob wedding</A> </P>
<P><A HREF=”file://mccoys\Ted.jpg”>
Ted</A> </P>
</BODY>
</HTML>
The figure shows what this index file looks
like in Internet Explorer. Just copy the example
file, duplicate the lines for individual pictures,
and substitute your own filenames. Notice
that the
file:// links don’t include a drive
letter. That means they link to files in locations
relative to the
HTML file’s own location. On
your hard drive, it might be C:\myphotocd. On
the
CD drive, it will be D:\ or whatever letter is
assigned to that drive.—
NJR
“
Too many Web pages are designed with no thought
that someone might want to print them.
”
PC MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 16, 2003 www.pcmag.com
74
HOW TO CONTACT US
E-MAIL
K
[e-mail]
FAX
K
212-503-5799
MAIL
K
User to User, PC Magazine, 28 East
28 Street, New York, NY 10016-7930
If we print your tip, you’ll receive a PC
Magazine T-shirt. We regret that we
cannot answer letters individually.
AFTER YOU RUN
google.reg, clicking on
Search in the IE toolbar will
activate a Google search bar
in the left pane.
YOU CAN CREATE
a simple HTML
index file to make
accessing files on a
CD easier.