If
you are looking for official WTO documents, go to the Documents
online database.
If
you are looking for publications, go to the
publications gateway.
If
you are looking for video and audio files go to the video
and
audio
gateways.
|
Portable Document Format files
(.pdf) back
to top
Portable document format was designed to preserve a document's page
layout, regardless of the computer platform being used. To view or download these files you need Adobe® Acrobat® Reader®
which can be downloaded for free from the Adobe
site. Note that unless you acquire special software, pdf documents
cannot be modified even if you download them.
Microsoft
Word files (.doc) back
to top
We recommend downloading MS Word files and opening them using MS Word. Word files can also be viewed using special viewers
such as
Quick View Plus, but page layout and paragraph
numbering may differ from the original document.
WordPerfect files
(.wpf) back
to top
Some older files on the WTO website are available in WordPerfect
5.1/5.2 format. Note that most of these are also available in pdf
format. We recommend downloading WordPerfect files and
opening them using MS Word. WordPerfect files can also
be viewed using special viewers such as
Quick View Plus, but page layout and paragraph
numbering may differ from the original document.
Executable files
(.exe) back
to top
Executable or .exe files perform an action when run locally on your
computer once they have been downloaded and saved on your hard disk.
For example, an .exe file might decompress itself to produce a number
of documents, or it might install software when you run it by
double-clicking. We recommend that you move each downloaded .exe file into its own folder before running it.
Note that .exe files from the WTO site will run only on MS
Windows-based machines.
Zip
files (.zip) back
to top
Zip
is a compression format used to reduce downloading times. “Zipped” files can be decompressed using software freely
available from http://www.winzip.com/
Microsoft
Access files (.mdb) back
to top
Microsoft
Access is a database format which will allow you to sort and modify
data. You need a full version of MS Access software to open files in
this formt. In some cases (e.g. schedules of concessions and
commitments on goods) data is provided in this format on the WTO
website.
Microsoft
Excel files (.xls) back
to top
Microsoft
Excel is spreadsheet software, designed to manipulate and view
numerical data such as statistics. We
recommend downloading MS Excel files and opening them using MS
Excel or other spreadsheet software. Excel files can also be viewed in your browser window
using a special viewer such as QuickView, but page layout may differ from the original document.
Audio files back
to top
A
number of different multimedia formats can be found on the WTO site.
Podcasting
You can listen to individual podcasts (audio files) on the WTO website
by clicking the “listen” link. This will download or open the mp3
audio file, and may start playing it, depending on your computer's
configuration.
You can also subscribe to be automatically alerted each time WTO
publishes a new audio file. You will need to subscribe through an
“aggregator” application such as Apple
iTunes™ or
MyYahoo!
Copy the URL below:
http://www.wto.org/library/rss/podcasts_e.xml
Then refer to your aggregator's help documentation on how to
subscribe. For example, in iTunes™, choose Advanced > Subscribe to podcast then
paste the URL above into the URL field. Some aggregators, such as
iTunes™, download new episodes automatically and make them available
to portable audio players.
Video formats back
to top
In order to cater for the wide range of user
needs, videos are made available on the WTO website in a number of
formats.
FLV
This is the video format used by default on the WTO Website. It
requires Adobe Flash player 7 or later. By default, videos on the WTO
website will play in a Flash player using progressive download. This
means if your connection is not fast enough to watch in “real time”
you can pause the video and return to it after a sufficient “buffer”
has been downloaded. The video should then play smoothly.
The default viewer does not allow you to
download the full video to save it locally for offline playback. If
you wish to do so, three alternative formats are available, listed
below. Links for these formats are displayed below the Flash player.
Right-click the appropriate link, and choose “Save target as” or “Save
link as” depending on your browser.
MP4 (fairly
high quality)
MP4 requires Flash Player 9 or more recent, available here: http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/.
Alternatively, MP4 files can be viewed with
the free VLC viewer available from
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Video is encoded at 640x480 pixels using the H264 codec. This is
fairly high quality, but not broadcast quality.
Windows Media Video
(low quality)
WMV requires Windows Media Player, available for free here http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/. WMV files on the WTO website are encoded at lower quality than other file types. Macintosh users can
view WMV files using
Flip4Mac, then opened using QuickTime.
MPEG2 (broadcast
quality)
MPEG2 files on the WTO website are used for broadcast-quality video and file sizes can be extremely large. MPEG files can be viewed using Windows Media Player on Windows, or QuickTime on the Mac.
This format is best suited to video professionals needing to manipulate the
video file. |
What is the difference between
downloading files and browsing online?
For our purposes downloading a file means to save it locally on your computer's hard
disk.
The page you are looking at now on your screen exists only in your
computer's “live” memory. You cannot modify it, and it will not be
accessible once you restart your computer, unless you connect to the
Internet again. This is fine for surfing around the web, but sometimes
you may want to keep documents for future use. Also, some formats,
such as MS Word (.doc) were not originally designed for online
browsing. They can be displayed in a browser
window only by embedding Word or by using special viewers (such as
Quick View Plus).
The viewer gives an imperfect representation of the document, so the
page layout, paragraph numbering etc. may be incorrect. For this
reason, we recommend that you download .doc files and open them in MS
Word rather than browsing online.
How
do you download a file?
>
If you are using Internet Explorer, click with the RIGHT mouse button on the hyperlink and choose “Save Target As”.
> If you are using Firefox, click with the RIGHT mouse on the hyperlink and choose “Save Link As”. The browser normally prompts you for a folder to which to save files, and it provides a default filename. You can change the folder and filename if you wish. Make a note of the location and name. Once the file is downloaded to your hard drive it can be viewed by
double clicking in Windows Explorer. |
