FAQs of general interest are located lower on this page. The three buttons lead to FAQs pertaining to the three Learning Magic product lines (IntelliTools-based, SoftTouch-based, and Clicker 5-based).

Keep in mind that often problems relate to the application in which the Learning Magic product runs. If so, you may find the answer to your question in the reference manual, help files, or FAQs for that application. You will also find links to the technical help sections of the websites for these applications at the beginning of each of the product line FAQs.

If you still need help, write to Include the name of the activity (and the CD if applicable), the name and version of the application (i.e., My Own Bookshelf 2.0.4), and your operating system and version. Be specific in describing what you were doing when you encountered the problem. Sometimes a screenshot illustrating the problem is very helpful, and you can attach that to your email.

General Interest FAQs

Q. Where can I find help downloading Goodies, and getting the .zip files decompressed?

Q. You suggest sending a screenshot with support questions. How do I make a screenshot?

A. Both Macintosh and Windows operating systems have built-in ways to take a picture of the screen. Of course, there are also many screen capture utilities available for purchase. But you can create screenshots without any additional software. Besides sending these with technical help questions, you can edit screenshots like any other graphic images and use them in building books and other activities. I'll describe the process on a Windows XP machine, followed by the process on Mac OSX.

On any Windows computer, you can take a snapshot of the screen by pressing the PRINT SCREEN key, located in the top row of your keyboard. Back in the olden days, when computer screens were mostly text, pressing this key actually sent the contents of the screen directly to a printer. Now when you press the key, nothing seems to happen. But whatever is on the screen is placed onto the clipboard as an image.

To use the image, you need to get it into some graphics application so that you can save it. You must do this immediately, before copying anything else, or the screen image would be replaced by something else on the clipboard. All Windows computers have a simple graphics application called Paint installed. Look for Paint in the Start menu, under Accessories, and run the application.

As soon as Paint opens, go to the Edit menu and choose Paste, or use the Control-v key combination. The clipboard image, in this case the screenshot, will be pasted into Paint. You can save it as is if you want the entire screen for the image. Paint saves in bitmapped (.bmp), JPEG (.jpg) and several other formats. You will need .jpg if you want to post it online.

You also might want to save only part of the image from the screen. To do this, get the selection marquee tool (upper right) from the Paint tools palette. Click and drag across the area you want to save. Go to the Edit menu and choose Copy to... (Windows XP). A file dialog will open, and you can navigate to the folder where you want to save your cropped image. Alternately, you could copy the selection, choose New from Paint, and paste the cropped image. Of course, if you have a more advanced graphics program, such as PhotoShop Elements or Corel Draw, you can paste your screenshot into it for more elaborate editing.

You have a choice of procedures on Mac. There are some key combinations that will work on any Mac, even older machines running System 9. Command (or open-apple)-shift-3 takes a snapshot of the entire screen, and drops it onto the desktop. Command (or open-apple)-shift-4 gives you a crosshair cursor with which you can click and drag to select part of the screen. In each case, you will hear a little click like a camera shutter to let you know the image has been created. The format varies, depending on the exact OSX. OSX 10.2 screenshots are in .pdf format. OSX 10.3 and later are in .png format.

Your second choice is to go into the Applications folder, open Utilities, and run the Grab application. Grab lets you select part of the screen, all of the screen, a window, and even lets you do a timed capture, so that you could open a menu and have that in the screenshot. It then lets you save in TIFF (.tif) format.

Images created either by using the key shortcuts or the Grab utility will open in Preview, which is installed on all Macs. You can then EXPORT the image in a variety of formats, including .jpg, PhotoShop (.psd), and others. If you have graphics editing software such as PhotoShop, you can open your screenshot for further editing. Remember that .jpg format is needed to post online, and it is also a good compact format to use in email.

Q. How do I download and save a PDF file? Where does it get saved? I saved one in Internet Explorer, and the file was not saved as PDF. What happened?

Here is a screen from the download Preferences of Firefox. Notice that there is a slot where you can designate what folder you want all downloaded files to be saved into. On Mac, the default is Documents, on Windows XP, the default is My Documents. But you can set any folder you want, and change the folder manually as needed.

Notice, too, that Firefox can open certain files automatically. So probably you would see the PDF open in Firefox. Check in the folder you indicated to make sure the file is actually there.

Here is the analogous screen from Safari in Macintosh. Again, you can designate what folder you want all downloaded files to be saved into. You can also put a checkmark in a box to make Safari open the PDF so you can read it in the Browser window.

On Windows XP, usually the plug-in is standard so you will see the PDF open in the browser window as soon as you click Download. IE is actually using the plug-in to launch Acrobat Reader, and then display within the IE window, so you must have Acrobat Reader for this to function properly.

The tricky part is saving the PDF file. If you go to File/Save As, what gets saved is a copy of the browser window, not a PDF format file. Instead, look for a little floppy disk icon (now there's an antique!) up in the left corner of the toolbar. Click that to actually save the PDF file.

Once you click the little icon, you will get a Save As dialog box, and probably it will go to My Documents. Check the "Save in" line at the top of the window to see where it's saving the file. Also note at the bottom of the window that the "Save as Type" line says "Adobe PDF".