MaPhySto
Centre for Mathematical Physics and Stochastics
Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Aarhus

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Funded by The Danish National Research Foundation

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) about down-loading and printing/reading MaPhySto publications

Q: I can view the postscript files and send them to my printer, but they just seem to pass through the printer without ever being printed.

A: This is most likely due to the fact that our files are formatted for the European A4 paper format, and you are trying to print on some other paper format, like US letter format. Some printers do not accept this and cancel the job themselves.
Solution: Download the pdf-file instead and use the facility 'fit-to-page', which most pdf-viewers have (after chosing the relevant paper format of course).

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Q: When I down-load a gzipped postscript file to my PC (running Microsoft Explorer under Windows95/97/2000/NT) I have problems viewing/printing it although I have a postscript-viewer installed?

A: Most likely the problem will be the following: when Explorer receives a file called file.ps.gz it automatically decompresses the file and suggests that you save the file as file_ps. You should change this into file.ps Then, provided your postscript-viewer is properly installed, you should be able to view the file by double-clicking on it.

This behavior was reported by Gary Oke (Sr. Programmer, Bank One), who also provided the following thorough analysis about platform/software-dependece of the problem - thanks!

[...] It is the browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer) that decompresses each postscript file without correcting the extension. [...] Here is an analysis of common browsers and operating systems and how they react to the downloading of *.gz files:

Under Windows 9x/NT/2000
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Internet Explorer 4 - 5.01         Decompresses, wrong extension
Netscape Communicator 4.73         Decompresses, correct extension
Opera 4.0 (beta 5)            Correctly downloads compressed files
Sun Hot Java 3.0                   Correctly downloads compressed files
NCSA Mosaic 3.0                    Correctly downloads compressed files
Lynx 2.8.1                         Correctly downloads compressed files

Under Linux (RedHat 6.1)
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All browsers appear to download *.gz files properly


Under Unix (Sun Solaris 7)
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All browsers appear to download *.gz files properly


Under BeOS (v5.0)
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NetPositive                        Correctly downloads compressed files

Analysis: We use Microsoft Windows NT/2000 and Internet Explorer exclusively at our location. It appears that the only browser that has a problem with *.gz files is Internet Explorer. Netscape also performs the automatic decompression of *.gz files, but correctly adjusts extensions. I also found it interesting that other operating systems (Linux, Unix, and BeOS) all handle the downloading of *.gz files without a problem (I use Linux and BeOS at home).
Solution: The solutions to the download problem are simple: Either correct the extension on any Microsoft Internet Explorer downloaded *.gz file or switch to a browser (or Operating System) that handles *.gz files correctly (in order words, a "REAL" browser).
Conclusion: The problem is Microsoft's software, not maphysto.dk's files.