File Format Information
This page features details on how to view some documents and media which we use, or intend to use in the future on this website. Reading this page is only necessary if you're having problems viewing some files on our website. We are not responsible for any problems which arise from the use of any programs or recommendations described here (not that there should be any!).
Microsoft Word documents
To view Microsoft Word documents you'll either need to have Microsoft Word or Microsoft Word Viewer installed.
You may already have Microsoft Word installed as it is usually included with the Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office Home and Student Edition 2007 costs around £100 at the time or writing, and it can be installed on any 3 computers at 1 time (it includes Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint as well as Word). A free trial which can be used 25 times can currently be downloaded from here.
Microsoft Word Viewer is a free alternative, however it only allows the viewing and printing of Microsoft Word documents. It can be downloaded from here.
A third option is to use OpenOffice, a free office suite. The drawback is that while it will read, edit and save Office 2003 and earlier files, it currently won't read or edit Office 2007 files (including Word 2007), though in this instance that shouldn't be a problem as on this website we do try to use pre-Office 2007 files where possible. OpenOffice is completely free for non-commercial purposes, though the (lack of a) price doesn't take away from what is an excellent and feature-rich suite. Not quite as complete as Microsoft Office but very highly recommended given the price. If you don't have Microsoft Office we stronly suggest you install this - you can download it here.
Portable Document Format (PDF) documents
To view PDF documents you will need a PDF viewer, the most common of which is Adobe Acrobat Reader. Many will already have this installed on their computers, as it's often bundled with other applications. If not it can be downloaded from here.
As an alternative we recommend the much smaller and less intrusive Foxit Reader, which can be downloaded from here (if in doubt, choose the 'installer' option).
Windows Media videos
We have some pages with videos imbedded into them. To view these you will need to have Windows Media Player installed. Windows Media Player will almost always already exist on your computer, however if our videos aren't working you may need to update to the latest version (at the time of writing this is version 11). That can be obtained for free here. Please note that if you use Windows Vista, version 11 of Windows Media Player will already be installed, in which case the above has no relevance unless an updated version has been released since this page was updated.
If you're using the Internet Explorer browser which is included with Microsoft Windows, you may receive the message below when you navigate to a page including a Windows Media video. To allow the page to play the video you will need to click on the message and select "Run ActiveX Control", and then "Run" on the following dialog box. You needn't worry about the security warnings, as Microsoft is obviously a reputable company.
If you're using the Mozilla Firefox internet browser then you may need to install this plug-in to view Windows Media videos in your browser.
DivX videos
We may decide to post some videos in the DivX format. It's possibly a name you've seen before when looking at DVD players. The reason we may move to DivX is that it gives far superior video quality to that of Windows Media for a similar file size.
If you're using the Internet Explorer browser which is included with Microsoft Windows, then you may receive the message below when you navigate to a page which includes a DivX video. To allow the page to play the video you will need to click on the message and select "Run ActiveX Control", and then "Run" on the following message. You needn't worry about the security warnings, as DivX are a reputable company.
If you're using the Mozilla Firefox browser, then you may receive the message below when you navigate to a page which includes a DivX video. To allow the page to play the video you will need to click on "Install Missing Plugins...".
Once the DivX Web Player has been downloaded, the following screen should pop up. Click on next at the bottom.
A licensing agreement should follow, as below. You may wish to read it, though you can just click on "I agree." if time is precious - once done, click on "next". A second licensing agreement may follow, and if so again click on "I agree." once more followed by "next". When you click on "Finish" the movie should begin to download and start playing.
To test the DivX Web Player click here.
Other video formats
We also aim to provide some videos in other formats. On certain pages you will see links allowing you to download videos so you can play them on PDAs, Apple Video iPods, Microsoft Zunes and even some mobile phones. We can't provide instructions for each of these specific formats, but as these videos will usually be very large files, we have provided some short (7 second) sample videos so you can test that your device can play these videos before you download the actual content you wish to view.
These videos need to be downloaded before you transfer them to your mobile device (for example with ActiveSync with some PDAs and mobile phones and iTunes for iPods), as even if your device includes an internet browser you won't be able to play them directly from within it.
Right-click on the format you wish to test and then click on "Save Target As..." saving it to a location on your hard drive.
Windows Mobile based PDAs, Windows Mobile based phones and Microsoft Zune
