This website contains quiz and exam keys, reviews for exams, and other material. These are available in both pdf and ps formats. Some material will also be available in html or gif format. You choose which format to view by clicking on the highlighted "pdf", "ps", "html", or "gif" next to the item in which you are interested.
Portable Document Format (pdf) files: To view these your computer must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed and must be configured to associate this program with pdf files. In most computer labs on campus this should already be set up for you. If you are working on your own computer you can download this free program from Adobe by clicking here.
PostScript (ps) files: To view these your computer must have Aladdin Ghostscript and GSview or Ghostview, etc. installed and must be configured to associate these programs with ps files. Ghostscript is an interpreter for the PostScript language; GSview (for MS-Windows and OS/2) and similar programs such as GV, Ghostview, and MacGhostView (for other operating systems) are the programs actually used to view the files (during which Ghostscript automatically works in the background.) These programs can usually also view pdf files. Unfortunately, they may not be available in some campus labs. They are available on the Web for free. Click on the link given above to find the download sites and to get more information.
HyperText Markup Language (html) files: You don't need any extra software to view these; in fact you're viewing one right now. This is the standard language for writing Web pages, so your browser will automatically display it.
Graphics Interchange Format (gif) files: Again, your Web browser should display these files automatically.
Which should you use?
In general, pdf is the best choice. Acrobat Reader is fairly easy to install, and most of the files on this site were created with Maple and then exported directly to pdf. You should have no trouble viewing them. I have received a report that in one of the labs pdf files were very slow to print, so I have made ps files available as an alternative for those with access to PostScript viewing software. In general PostScript is a more powerful and versatile format than pdf, but ps files are larger than pdf files and so may take longer to download. And, as noted above, some labs may not have the software to view them.
Some of the files (e.g. exams) were created by the LaTeX mathematical typesetting program. Some of these can be output directly to pdf, but others must first be output to ps files and then converted to pdf. Some versions of Acrobat Reader have trouble viewing these files. Sometimes the onscreen display is fuzzy; this can usually be corrected by increasing the magnification in Acrobat Reader; these files seem to print all right, though. Other times Acrobat Reader will display a portion of the file and then crash. If you have PostScript viewing software, the ps version should be fine. I will also provide html and possibly gif versions as a last online resort. Some browsers have trouble aligning the symbols in these html files, sometimes putting them above a line of type instead of inside it, and may have trouble with subscripts. The gif files should display everything accurately, but there will be a separate file for each page of the document, and the text might have no top or left margins.