Many of you have asked us questions through our past surveys, via RCFs, and at conferences. We would like to share the answers to some of the more frequently asked questions. If you would like more information, please send us a note.
Finding books in multiple shelves:
Question: Why are some books part of several bookshelves? How do I know which bookshelf to use to get the latest copy of the book?
Answer: Sometimes a book is shared between two or more products, and therefore must be included in each product's library. Also, to make certain types of related information easier to use, some books are grouped into task-oriented libraries (such as messages and codes, or planning and installation) in addition to being provided in product-related libraries.
Books that are on several bookshelves should be at the same level and are the latest copies available at production time.
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Finding missing books:
Question: Why are some books or libraries dropped from collections even though the related product is still supported?
Answer: Sometimes old libraries are being revised and new libraries are not ready at manufacturing time. Depending on how the library owner chooses to revise the library, the old library might not be intact and can no longer be included.
The entire cycle to develop, manufacture, and distribute updated physical media takes about three months and does not allow time for interim updates. The latest books and libraries are available on the Internet, such as the z/OS Internet library and IBM Publications Center. Book updates and updated product libraries are generally included in the next update of the IBM softcopy collections to which they apply.
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Locating manuals on collections:
Question: What is the best way now to find a particular book?
The softcopy collection index and disc index allow you to locate books quickly and easily. You can set your autorun preferences for collection discs to cause the collection index or disc index to be automatically displayed in your browser window if you insert a numbered disc (a disc containing publications) into your disc drive and you have autorun enabled. (If the collection index does not automatically display in your browser, use a tool such as My Computer or Windows Explorer to display the contents of the disc that is in your disc drive and double click on the file scframe.htm in the root directory of the disc to display the collection index. Or, double-click on the file disc.htm to display the disc index.)
The collection index shows a list of bookshelves in the collection, followed by lists for each bookshelf showing all the books in the bookshelf. The disc index shows only the bookshelves on the disc that is in the disc drive and the books in those bookshelves. You can use several methods to find the book you want:
- If you know what bookshelf the book is in, you can click on that bookshelf in the list of bookshelves to jump to the list of books in that bookshelf.
- You can read through the list of bookshelves and books to find the book you want.
- You can use the search function of the collection index to search for any character string in the title of any book or bookshelf.
When you've found the book you want, if you're using the collection index make sure the disc containing the book is in your disc drive. (The disc number is shown on the line with the bookshelf name. If the bookshelf contains a large number of books, you might have to scroll up to find the disc number.) Then click on the book's title in the collection index or disc index, and the book will open in your book reader.
If you are looking for information but are not sure what book it is in, use the collection index to determine what disc the information is most likely to be on. Put that disc in your disc drive, and use its All-Disc bookshelf to search the entire disc or character strings in the titles or text of the books on the disc.
For more information on locating books look for the file SCINDEX. xxx in the root directory; for example, SCINDEX.PDF for the PDF version of the booklet). If you are looking at the softcopy collection index (either as automatically displayed or by opening scframe.htm), you can click on links to view the BookManager and PDF formats of the collection booklet.
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Printing softcopy in general:
Question: Printing from the IBM Library Reader or IBM Softcopy Reader is awful! How can I get a decent printout of a softcopy book?
Answer: The print facility in the IBM Library Reader or IBM Softcopy Reader is meant to print only a topic or two of a book. You can, however, print your own hardcopy when you need it from the softcopy files provided, whether you are accessing those files from a DVD, z/OS Internet library, or a local repository or Web site. For a complete hardcopy book that looks like a traditional manual you would order from IBM, print the PDF file for the book. If you are viewing a softcopy file and you want hardcopy of a topic or two, you can print either the BOOK or PDF file you are viewing.
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Printing PDF files:
Question: Printing is more difficult and time-consuming than I expected. Exactly how do I print a PDF file? How do I print PDFs from a host repository?
Answer: In the workstation environment, you use an Adobe Reader to view and print PDF files. But sometimes you need alternatives. For those large or graphically complex books that need to be printed on an AFP printer, you might want to have the host handle the transforms, instead of doing it on the workstation before sending the file. When printing PDFs from a host repository, z/OS and the optional Infoprint Server feature expand your options for printing PDF files.
Using an Adobe Reader
- Install an Adobe Reader on your computer. Any collection with a tools disk and install program, includes a recent level of an Adobe Reader (at no extra charge). You can also go to the Adobe Web site at http://www.adobe.com for other readers or more information.
- Open the PDF you want to print. The PDF can be on a DVD, on the z/OS Internet library--anywhere you can view it with an Adobe Reader.
- Select the Reader's Print option.
- Select the desired printer and specify other print options as appropriate.
- Click OK to print the file.
Reminder: Be aware that if you decide to print a subset of a book from a PDF file, the "pages" (as understood by Adobe Reader) are totally sequential. The Reader views the front cover as page 1 and takes off from there--no Roman numeral page numbers for the front matter, no section numbering. So, when you specify the pages to print, be sure to enter the page numbers from the Reader's point of view (check the page box at the bottom of the screen) and not as they appear on the individual pages of the book.
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Printing from a BOOK file:
Question: While viewing or searching in a BookManager BOOK, I often want to print a few paragraphs or sections. Exactly how do I print from a BOOK file?
Answer: How to print topics from a BOOK file depends on how you are viewing that file:
- From your workstation, with IBM Softcopy Reader (for example, to read a BOOK file from a CD-ROM)
- From the z/OS Internet library, which uses IBM BookManager BookServer to display BookManager files
- From an z/OS host, with BookManager READ
Because the printout is from the BOOK file itself, the output looks like the BOOK file, with numbered sections and subsections instead of page numbers. But remember--you should only use the BOOK file to print a topic or two, and not the whole book.
Using IBM Softcopy Reader
To print the topic you are currently viewing:
- Click on the Print icon or go to File --> Print. This opens a Print window.
- Click on the Current button. This opens your workstation Print window.
- Complete the print options in your workstation Print window, then click OK to print the current topic.
To print selected topics:
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Select the desired topics in the "table of contents" frame. Hold down the Shift key to select a list of topics, or hold down the Ctrl key to select specific topics.
To print all the topics in a chapter, expand the chapter by clicking the + sign next to the chapter heading in the table of contents. Highlight all the topics in the chapter. If you highlight only the main chapter topic without expanding it, you will print only the page that displays for the main chapter topic, including a list of subtopics for the chapter but not the subtopics themselves.
- Click on the Print icon or go to File --> Print. This opens a Print window.
- Click on the Selected button. This opens your workstation Print window.
- Complete the print options in your workstation Print window, then click OK to print the selected topics.
Using the z/OS Internet library
Printing from the z/OS Internet library gives you a very high-quality output.
To print the topic you are currently viewing:
- Click your browser Print icon.
- Follow the usual steps for printing from your browser.
To print selected topics:
- Click the BookManager BookServer Print icon (not your browser Print icon). This opens a Print Preview window.
- Highlight the desired topics from the selection box. Hold down the Shift key to select a list of topics or hold down the Ctrl key to select specific topics.
- Click the Selected topics button. You then see a formatted preview of the topics.
- Use your browser's print facility to produce a hardcopy document of the information shown.
To print pages from a BookManager BOOK file you are currently viewing:
- Click the BookManager BookServer Download PDF icon, if selectable.
- When presented with the File Download dialog, select "Open this file from its current location" and then click "OK", which will launch the Adobe Reader for the PDF.
- Use the Acrobat Reader print function to print the desired pages in the PDF document.
To print pages from a PDF document you select from a bookshelf, bookshelf search results list, or a catalog list:
- Click the PDF icon, if present.
- When presented with the File Download dialog, select "Open this file from its current location" and then click "OK", which will launch the Adobe Reader for the PDF.
- Use the Acrobat Reader print function to print the desired pages in the PDF document.
Using BookManager READ
If your company has established a softcopy repository on z/OS, you can use the Print option of BookManager READ to get hardcopy of a topic or two. However, BookManager READ by itself (without other programs such as DCF and BookMaster, which are not part of z/OS) provides a lower quality print than printing from BookManager BookServer--it is essentially a screen print. Sometimes, though, BookManager READ might be the only available option. In that case, here's how to proceed.
- Open the book you are interested in.
- To set your print options, select the Options pull-down menu, then select option 5 (Set print options) and specify the desired options.
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Use the PRINT command to print one or more topics in the book. (BookManager READ/MVS invokes the ISPF panels you normally use to print at your site.)
Enter the command in one of the following ways:
PRINT
PRINT topic1
PRINT topic1 TO topic2
PRINT topic1 FOR number-of-topics
To print the current topic, enter the PRINT command without operands.
To print all of a topic (such as 1.0), including its subtopics: enter the next topic number (such as 2.0), then prev. Make note of the last topic number (for example, 1.6.4), then enter the PRINT command with the complete range ( PRINT 1.0 TO 1.6.4).
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Creating and maintaining repositories of books:
Question: I'd like to create a repository of online books that could be shared by many people in my company. How can I do this?
Answer: The IBM SoftCopy Librarian allows you to create and maintain repositories of BookManager books and PDF files. It runs on Windows, and provides the following capabilities:
- Supports one or more repositories, in many types of locations, including:
- On z/OS hosts, in sequential data sets or in the hierarchical files (HFS) of Unix System Services
- On Linux, AIX or other Unix-like servers
- On LAN servers
- On local workstations
- Allows you to transfer books to a repository from a variety of sources, including:
- CD collections (from IBM or from other companies)
- Over the Internet, from Web sites that support the SoftCopy Librarian, including the IBM PUBLIB Web site
- A local hard disk that contains bookshelves of books that you created
Note: In general, using the Internet to obtain books from IBM might be slower than using DVDs. We recommend that you use the IBM DVD collections to transfer large numbers of shelves, indexes, and books to your repositories, and use the Internet only for updating your repositories between collection updates with the latest releases or a few critically important bookshelves.
- Allows you to track new and updated books. The SoftCopy Librarian keeps a catalog of all the bookshelves and book files that you send to your repository from any of the sources listed above. When a new level of a bookshelf arrives, on a new DVD or downloaded from a Web site, the SoftCopy Librarian compares the bookshelf and its contents with the catalog and shows you whether it's brand new or whether it's changed since the last level you received. You can see at a glance which shelves on a DVD or on a supported Web site are currently in your host repository. You can then upload to your repository only the new and updated bookshelves.
- Helps you to maintain your repository. The SoftCopy Librarian shows you which bookshelves in your repository can be replaced by the new and updated ones that you have transferred. It can list the books in a bookshelf. It shows you which books, if any, are missing from any of the bookshelves, and it shows you which books are "orphaned"; that is, not in any bookshelf. All this makes it easy for you to delete the bookshelves and books that have been replaced or are no longer needed.
The Softcopy Librarian is included on all IBM Online Library collections. You can install it using the program for installing softcopy tools provided on the collections. If you don't have a recent collection, you can download the Softcopy Librarian:
For more information on the Softcopy Librarian, see the book IBM Softcopy Librarian: User's Guide, available on all IBM Online Library Collections, and on the Internet.
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Cross-book linking among documents:
Question: How can I ensure that cross-book links will work among documents in my repository?
Answer: Cross-book linking works for z/OS documents in both BookManager and PDF format. For PDFs, the linked documents must be in the same directory. For BookManager, the linked documents must be uploaded to z/OS and must be located on the same bookshelf. Cross-book linking for documents on DVD also works among documents on the same DVD.
PDFs link to each other by file name, and IBM changes a document's file name whenever the document is updated. Thus a link from an unchanged PDF might not connect to a new edition of a target document, because the new edition has a new file name. However, a link from an unchanged PDF will still connect to its original target document. Therefore, if you maintain your own PDF repository, IBM recommends that you keep multiple levels of PDFs together in the same directory, to minimize unresolved links. By contrast, BookManager documents link to each other by their base order numbers, which stay the same from release to release, so an unchanged BOOK file can usually link successfully to an updated target BOOK file.
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Reporting BookManager problems:
Question: How do I report problems using Softcopy Reader or SoftCopy Librarian?
Answer: Send an e-mail to bookmgr@us.ibm.com to contact BookManager Support.
Question: How do I report problems with the collections or using the online library?
Answer: Send an e-mail to mhvrcfs@us.ibm.com.
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Suggesting BookManager enhancements:
Question: BookManager needs major enhancements.How can I learn more about this product and communicate with its developers?
Answer: To learn more about BookManager and communicate with developers, go to the IBM BookManager home page. Or, you can send an e-mail to bookmgr@us.ibm.com to directly contact BookManager Product Support.
BookManager, IBM's Softcopy solution, is a family of products that lets you build documents into electronic books so that they can be read everywhere: by intelligent workstations, by non-programmable terminals, and by Web browsers.
BookManager has an easy-to-use, patented linguistic-based search, uses a familiar book metaphor, and has an efficient file structure that is highly compressed. We continue to enhance BookManager and welcome your input.
With BookManager BookServer or the latest LibraryServer product, you can serve an entire library of BookManager books across the Web. You can use any Web browser and have all the power of BookManager, including BookManager's high-performance, morphological searching capabilities.
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Using a reader on Windows:
Question: Is a BookManager reader for Windows available?
Answer: Yes, the IBM Softcopy Reader 3.0 or later runs under Windows XP, and eliminates the prerequisite for Java Runtime Environment. It consists of a Book Reader and a Shelf Organizer that expand the support provided by the IBM Library Readers. For example, you can:
- Use cut, copy and paste commands to move and copy books from one shelf to another
- Filter lists of bookshelves and books
- Delete bookshelf files
- Perform an exact search on bookshelves
- Access groups of PDFs through the Shelf Organizer
- Search and work with notes using consolidated interfaces
For details, see the README file and user's guide provided in the self-extracting zip file for the program. The user's guide is also available on the Internet.
We recommend that you always install the latest level of the IBM Softcopy Reader, which is available for downloading from: http://www.ibm.com/software/office/bkmgr/softcopyread.html. IBM Softcopy Reader is also available in the \ilrjava directory on CD-ROM and DVD collections, at the level that was current when the collection was manufactured.
The IBM Library Reader for Windows runs on Windows NT or earlier. Starting in March 2001, only the IBM Softcopy Reader is shipped on CD collections, and the IBM Library Readers are no longer supported. The IBM Library Readers will continue to be available on an as-is basis from the BookManager Web site ( http://www.ibm.com/software/office/bkmgr/ilr.html) for those users who choose to continue using them.
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Accessing older manuals:
Question: Why don't the collections contain older manuals for out-of-service products?
Answer:Our procedures do not allow us to include obsoleted manuals for products that have gone out of service.
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Updating softcopy:
Question: Why does it take so long for softcopy updates of some books to get picked upon collections? It can take up to two quarters to get softcopy to match.
Answer: The collections are typically updated to coincide with product availability or as needed. If a library is not ready when the collections go into production, that library will not be picked up until the next time the collection is updated.
The latest books and libraries are available on the Internet, such as the z/OS Internet library and IBM Publications Center.
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Final updates to the OS/390 collections:
Question: Now that the z/OS collections are shipping, when will updates to the OS/390 manuals be discontinued?
Answer: Final updates to the following OS/390 manuals were made in October 2003:
- OS/390 Collection, SK2T-6700-27
- OS/390 PDF Collection, SK2T-6718-17
In addition, final updates to the remaining OS/390 manuals were made in December 2000:
- OS/390 Licenced Product Library, LK2T-2499-07
- OS/390 SecureWay Security Server RACF Collection, SK2T-2180-25
Though updates to all OS/390 collections are being discontinued, the collections will continue to remain orderable.
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