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RTF Notes and tips

Please carefully read the notes listed before you download the rtf files. They will help you use the rtf files and may answer your queries if you are having difficulties.

Which format should I use?

This web site carries the Common Worship texts in three different formats - rtf, pdf and html. Confused? Need advice on which format you need? Read this information on file formats.

How to view, save and open the rtf files

The material from the books has been split down into sections so that you don't have to scroll through a huge amount of text to find the service or resource that you need. However, in order to keep the number of downloads manageable, we have not created individual files for every single service.

Selecting a link in the usual way will cause the file to open within your open web browser window. This is fine if you just want to view the file, but if you want to save it to hard disk, we would recommed that you instead choose "Save Target As" (if using Internet Explorer) or "Save Link As" (if using Netscape). If you're using a PC you can access these options by clicking on the link with the secondary mouse button (normally the right-hand one, unless you have customized the settings). This will enable you to save the file to a folder on your hard disk for future reference and use. You will probably have to tell the computer where to store the file.

To ensure that older computers can recognize the files, we have given them all abbreviated filenames. However, if you have a computer that can give files extended file names, we recommend that you rename the files that you download so that it is easier to remember what is in each one. For example, rather than having a file called "eps_ord1.rtf" you could rename it "Eucharistic_Prayers_A_to_H.rtf"

Each of the downloads is relatively small and should take one or two minutes to complete on an average 56kbps modem. If you prefer to download the entire range at once, then use the "zipped file" option. You will need to have a compression utility like WinZip available (unless you are using Windows own compression utility). A free trial version of WinZip is available to download from www.winzip.com.

Your word processor may prompt you to "convert from RTF" when you try to open the files; if so, just OK the conversion process and the file should open correctly.

Where has the material come from?

Most of the material is taken from four printed books: Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England (CHP, 2000), Common Worship: President's Edition (CHP, 2000), Common Worship: Pastoral Services (CHP, 2000) and New Patterns for Worship (CHP, 2002). Material that is reproduced in more than one of the books has only been included once in these files.

The Daily Prayer and Initiation Services books are not provided as RTF files. A change to the way in which the web pages for those two books present the information on this site should mean that it is easy to copy and paste from the web pages without needing a separate set of RTF files.

The music from the President's edition is not included. To view the music, use the pdf files.

How to find the texts you need

You may find it useful to have a copy of one of the printed books to hand, to help you to search quickly for the texts that you need and to check up on layout and formatting.

As far as is possible, we have given each file a filename that gives an indication of what texts are included. Where there are both traditional and contemporary language versions of a particular resource or service, the filename will indicate this with the letters "c" or "t" (or occasionally, "tra").

Formatting and the "All" rubric

In order to ensure that the text is readable by a wide range of systems, we have had to make some compromises in layout and formatting. We hope that you will understand that the aim of these files is to provide the texts to as many people as possible, and so access to the files has to be the highest priority.

The level of formatting retained in the files when you open them will depend in part on the particular system and software setup you are using. If you're opening them in recent versions of Word or Wordpad you should see red/black colour as appropriate, bold and italic formatting, and variation in font size to distinguish headings and so on. Please note that some of the Initiation Services material was taken from a different source, and may well not have any red colouring.

In the book, some headings are right-aligned. We have not been able to reproduce this successfully across different software so all headings in these files have been left-aligned.

We have had to remove the 'All' rubric, as the tab/margin settings and indent styles necessary to include it caused difficulties for some of the systems on which we tested the files. You may also notice that lines do not all begin flush with each other, eg in a psalm where verse numbers are given these will throw out the alignment; this is a side-effect of the same problem.

Special characters do not display consistently across systems, and you may find that the decorative paragraph symbol (reverse P) used in some headings, the dagger/cross symbol and the ellipsis do not display properly. All Hebrew characters (e.g. those in Psalm 119) have been removed. The diamond that appears in the Psalter has been replaced throughout with an asterisk.

We would advise that if you are using the texts to produce local orders of service, you have a book to hand where possible, in order to confirm appropriate formatting, special characters, and position of the 'All' rubrics.

If you have trouble using the files

If you have never used RTF files before, or are using new or recently upgraded software to access the files, please consult the manual/online help that came with your word-processing or DTP package for accurate information related to your particular set-up. Try looking up "RTF", "file types" or "import" in the index. A small number of software packages may require special optional filters to be installed in order to read RTF files, and it is possible that you did not choose to install the filter when you installed or reinstalled the software package. The manual or online help should explain how to set up the software to read and use files in Rich Text Format.

If you are able to read other RTF files using the same hardware and software set-up, but still can't read these files, please contact us. Please be sure to describe the problem in full, including any error messages that you encountered. We have tested the files on as many system/software set-ups as we could, but it is possible that there may be some problems as yet unreported. If that is the case, we will endeavour to fix them.

Keeping your files up to date

If errors are found or changes are made to the texts, the files on this web site will be updated. Check back frequently to find out if any files have been updated so that you always have the most accurate files available.