Karl's Calculus Tutor

Browser Notes

Browser Notes:

To properly view these pages, open your view port out to at least->-->-->-->here

If you can't see the word "here" in the line above, place your mouse-cursor on the right-hand edge of the frame, hold the left mouse button, and drag the right-hand edge of the screen to the right until you can see it. If all or part of the word, "here" is beyond your right-hand margin, then part of certain equations will also be beyond your right-hand margin.

Recommended Browsers: Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 5.x or 6.x and Mozilla FireFox, version 1

These pages also work with Netscape 4.x. You can also use Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.x but you will find some misrenderings of certain equations. For example, many versions of Explorer do not render

   e^-x²

correctly (the above should appear with two distinct levels of superscription). Versions 5.x and 6.x have corrected this problem. Note that Explorer 3.x and earlier has some real problems with these pages.

Microsoft Internet Explorer (including all known 5.x and 6.x versions) has a bug (big surprise there) regarding rendering of the horizontal lines used in Karl's Calculus Tutor to indicate quotients. Sometimes (and there seems to be no real pattern) the horizontal line will fail to appear, even though it does appear reliably with other browsers such as Netscape and Firefox. The problem has been in Microsoft IE pretty much since its inception, and MS appears to have no intention of ever fixing it (shame on you Bill Gates). As of 2-Oct-2004 I am still working on tracking down all the places where this is a problem and recoding those pages so that Microsoft IE renders them correctly. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Netscape 6.x and 7.x (Mozilla Gecko) do not support the symbol font. As of 2-Oct-2004, the symbol font has been eliminated from all of the pages of Karl's Calculus Tutor except for the Karl's Calculus Forum pages. So if you are a Netscape 6.x or 7.x user, unless you want to view the Forum pages, you need not take any of the steps below. Everything should render properly for you. If you use those versions of Netscape to view these webpages (this caveat now applies only to Karl's Calculus Forum pages), many of the math symbols will not render correctly in your display. You can fix the Mozilla versions using instructions available here. Another Netscape alternative for viewing these pages is to use version 4.8 or below. If need be, you can download Netscape 4.8 for Windows here. You will know that you need either to fix your Netscape or to download version 4.8 if you are running Netscape under Windows and you do not see the Greek letter, omega (looks like a horseshoe) here: W.

Mozilla FireFox seems to do well rendering these pages. In some cases it has a minor problem where it leaves less space between equations and the text that follows than MSIE. For now, where there is a difference between FireFox and MSIE rendering, the web pages will be tuned for best rendering using MSIE.

Recommended settings for Netscape 4.x are: Select "Edit" from Netscape's top bar. Then select "Preferences..." from the pull-down. Under "Appearance," select "Fonts." For "Variable Width Font" select "Times New Roman" with size of 14 (12 will also work but is harder to read). For "Fixed Width Font" select "Courier New" with size of 11 or 12. Use the largest size you can and still get the word "here" to appear on the right-hand side of the test line above. Note that the size of the fixed width font is important for alignment of equations and to ensure that they will fit onto the width of your screen. To make the renderings of equations fit best with the various graphics, choose the font size of the fixed width font that most closely makes the two x's just below the same size:

The size that does that is usually 12. If you have a small screen, your choice of fixed width font size might have to be a compromise between making the x's the same size and making the "here" fit on your screen. If that's the case, experiment a little. Font size adjustment is also available in Microsoft Internet Explorer, and the same applies about coming as close as possible to having the two x's the same size. In Netscape, also set the radio buttons for either "Use document-specified fonts, but disable dynamic fonts," or "Use document-specified fonts, including dynamic fonts."

Attention AOL subscribers: If the browser that comes with the standard AOL package appears to be inadequate to view these pages properly, you can still run Netscape under your AOL account, and it will give you a much better view of the tutorial. If you do not know how to set up Netscape under your AOL account, consult with your AOL technical representative via email or phone to find out how. Or you can click here to go to a Netscape archive download site and fetch the Netscape Browser on your own.

Attention Unix Users: As of 2-Oct-2004, the symbol font has been eliminated from all of the pages of Karl's Calculus Tutor except for the Karl's Calculus Forum pages. So if you are a Unix user, unless you want to view the Forum pages, you need not take any of the steps below. Everything should render properly for you. If you are running Netscape on an X-Windows platform, you may need to enable the symbol font in order to view these pages properly. For Red Hat and Sun users, Click here and either follow the instructions or find somebody who knows how Unix works to do it for you. This solution might also work on other Unix platforms, but I don't know for sure. You will know that you are lacking the symbol font if you see something other than the Greek letter, omega (which looks like a horseshoe), here: W.