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Technical Help/FAQ

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I am a subscriber. How do I register for full access to the site?

I just registered for the site, but the required e-mail with my validation link never arrived. How do I complete my registration?

I have validated my account and logged in. Why does the "Registration pending" or "You must log in" message still appear when I visit a protected page?

I have forgotten my user ID or password. How do I have them sent to me automatically?

How do I change my e-mail address, password, or user ID?

How do I unsubscribe myself from your e-mail newsletters, or change the e-mail address at which they arrive?

Do I have to log out of your site when I am through using it?

Many people in my household read the same Atlantic. Can we each create our own account?

Can I log into your site with cookies completely disabled?

Can I use your "E-mail article" tool to send an Atlantic article to a non-subscriber?

I get too many printed magazines already! May I purchase a subscription to an online-only version of The Atlantic?

I am having trouble printing your pages. What can I do to ensure acceptable printouts?

I experienced a technical problem while attempting to view one of the ProQuest premium archive pages. Whom should I contact?

Which Web browser is recommended for viewing the site?

The site is wider than my screen, forcing me to scroll horizontally. How can I see it all at once?

I am having a hard time reading the small text on your site. Can I increase the size of the text?

Do you support the use of handheld devices such as the Palm series or Pocket PC to view The Atlantic Online?

Do you support the use of MSN TV or WebTV to view The Atlantic Online?

I am using Mac OS X, and I noticed that your homepage uses an unattractive, horizontally compressed font. Why does it look like this?

Does my print subscription entitle me to free access to the ProQuest premium archive?

I am using Netscape 1.1, and your site does not display properly! What is wrong with you people?!

I have a technical question about your site that is not covered here. Where should I write?



I am a subscriber. How do I register for full access to the site?

Click here for our subscriber registration page and follow the instructions. You'll need a recent Atlantic mailing label.

I just registered for the site, but the required e-mail with my validation link never arrived. How do I complete my registration?

First, be certain that the e-mail wasn't mistakenly routed to your e-mail program's spam filter. Many e-mail programs are overly aggressive about classifying any HTML e-mail from an unknown sender as spam. If you cannot find the e-mail in your spam folder, visit a protected article page on our site. You will instead see a page with the message "Registration pending." Click the link within the text to re-send the validation e-mail. (It may help to add the address webhelp@theatlantic.com to your address book, as this is the address from which the validation e-mail will originate.) The e-mail may take up to an hour to reach some addresses, so be patient.

If the second e-mail does not arrive either, one of three things has occurred:

1. You mistyped your e-mail address when registering, causing the validation e-mail to be misdelivered. Click here to change your e-mail address and re-send the validation e-mail.

2. Your e-mail account is set to require human verification of all unknown senders using a "challenge-response" system such as EarthLink's spamBlocker. We regret that we are unable to reply to challenge-response requests. Please be sure to add webhelp@theatlantic.com to your whitelist, then re-send the validation e-mail as outlined above.

3. Your ISP is mistakenly blocking our registration e-mails as spam. (Hotmail and AOL accounts are particularly prone to this problem.) E-mail us at webtech@theatlantic.com from the same address entered when you subscribed, and we may be able to validate your account manually. Be sure to include your user ID and account number if available.

I have validated my account and logged in. Why does the "Registration pending" or "You must log in" message still appear when I visit a protected page?

Your browser is simply "stuck" on the older version of the page. Reloading the page—or in stubborn cases, emptying your browser's cache and removing any cookies from theatlantic.com— will solve the problem. If you are uncertain how to perform either of these steps, contact your browser's manufacturer.

I have forgotten my user ID or password. How do I have them sent to me automatically?

Click here to have our automated system send your account information to the e-mail address we have on file.

How do I change my e-mail address, password, or user ID?

To change the e-mail address or password associated with your account, click here to visit our subscriber customer service page. We're sorry, but you may not change your user ID once it has been created.

How do I unsubscribe myself from your e-mail newsletters, or change the e-mail address at which they arrive?

To unsubscribe from one of our newsletters, click this link and follow the instructions. You may also follow the instructions at the bottom of each newsletter.

For an e-mail address change, simply unsubscribe the old address and then subscribe the new one.

Do I have to log out of your site when I am through using it?

No. The logout button is primarily for those using public computers at libraries or Internet kiosks. If your computer is in a secure location, you are encouraged to remain logged in; your browser will use a "cookie" to remember your login information between sessions.

Many people in my household read the same Atlantic. Can we each create our own account?

An Atlantic subscription may be paired with only one account on The Atlantic Online, and each account is intended for use by one individual or household. While you may share your login information with members of your household, you may not share your unique user ID and password with friends, colleagues, or members of your extended family. If you wish to share a specific article with a non-subscriber, use the "E-mail article" tool at the top of most article pages.

Logins that are in simultaneous use by more than three computers may be suspended without warning.

Can I log into your site with cookies completely disabled?

Cookies are required for subscriber access to The Atlantic Online. Our cookies have no nefarious purpose: they simply store your login information so that our site can distinguish between registered and unregistered visitors.

If you are concerned about the use of cookies, you are may wish to turn on a level of browser security that causes each cookie transaction to generate a dialog box in your browser.

Can I use your "E-mail article" tool to send an Atlantic article to a non-subscriber?

Subscribers may use the "E-mail article" link at the top of most of our article pages to send a non-subscriber a link to one of our articles. The link will allow three-day access to the article.

For technical reasons, only articles posted since 2001 may be sent to non-subscribers in this fashion. (To determine if an article meets this requirement, look for the "login" or "logout" box near the top of the article. Articles lacking this box were posted before 2001, and may only be viewed by other subscribers.) Thank you for your understanding.

I get too many printed magazines already! May I purchase a subscription to an online-only version of The Atlantic?

Not at this time. We are, however, evaluating the possibility of selling digital subscriptions in the future. Do note that full access to The Atlantic Online comes with your print subscription. If an online-only subscription is a product you are strongly interested in, please visit our feedback page and let us know.

Atlantic print subscribers have full access to our site, including the current issue, back issues, and Web-only features. We hope you will join us as a subscriber today.

I am having trouble printing your pages. What can I do to ensure acceptable printouts?

Pages posted online since January 2001 include a "PRINTER FORMAT" button, which formats the page for optimal printing. We also recommend using Microsoft Internet Explorer for best results.

For printing earlier pages on our site (pre-2001), we can make the following recommendations:

1. Use Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer has fewer problems than Netscape to complicate printing. This is especially true on the Windows platform: Netscape 4.x for Windows has many printing-related bugs and is often incapable of successfully printing our pages.

2. Several of the e-mails we have received indicate that the first point bears repeating. Do not use Netscape 4.x to print pages from our site. It is buggy and may not work. Use Netscape 7 or Internet Explorer instead.

3. Set your browser's print options to "Shrink page to fit." Our pages are formatted for screen width; sometimes older browsers mistakenly print the last few characters of each line on a new page. Allowing your browser to fit the page to your printer's page width will eliminate this problem.

4. Remember that, for ease of reading onscreen, some longer articles are continued on multiple pages. On articles not equipped with the "PRINTER FORMAT" button, it will be necessary to print each of the article's segments in succession in order to print a complete copy.

I experienced a technical problem while attempting to view one of the ProQuest premium archive pages. Whom should I contact?

The premium archive was created and is maintained for us by a third party, ProQuest Archiver. Your first step should be to visit their extensive Frequently Asked Questions Page. If your question is not answered there, please visit the MyPQA site to log in and send them your query. As The Atlantic's staff is not involved in the archive's technical function or billing, we are unable to assist with technical problems or refunds.

Which Web browser is recommended for viewing the site?

We suggest using the most advanced browser supported by your computer and operating system. Recent browsers such as Internet Explorer version 5 and 6, Firefox, Netscape 7, and Safari should have no problems viewing The Atlantic Online. If you are using version 4 or below of either Netscape or Internet Explorer, we strongly recommend upgrading—Netscape 4.x is particularly problematic, and should be avoided. Both Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape are available to download or upgrade free of charge.

The Atlantic Online makes extensive use of style sheets for text formatting throughout the site; a browser with strong style sheet support such as Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer 5.x or 6.x will give best results.

The site also makes use of JavaScript and occasionally uses cookies to track user preferences in some features, such as Post & Riposte, our online forum, and online polls. In addition, the site will look best if your system includes the typefaces Times New Roman, Verdana, and Georgia, all of which are available free within Microsoft Windows.

The site is wider than my screen, forcing me to scroll horizontally. How can I see it all at once?

Most computers are capable of multiple screen resolutions. Higher resolutions fit more information onto the same monitor, the trade-off being that each pixel is just a bit smaller. We recommend setting your display to a resolution of 800 x 600 or higher. This is accomplished via your system's control panel, rather than within the browser.

I am having a hard time reading the small text on your site. Can I increase the size of the text?

Newer browsers such as Netscape 7 and Safari have a shortcut in the menubar ("View -> Text Zoom" or "View -> Make Text Bigger") which will proportionally increase the size of text on any page, even one designed with fixed-size type. If you are having difficulty reading small text, download and use Netscape 7, as it is much better at altering type size than is Internet Explorer. Other browsers will allow you to change the size of some of the text on the site, but with less consistent results. If you cannot switch to Netscape 7 for some reason, visit your current browser's preferences screen and increase the font size until you reach a size with which you are comfortable.

Our site makes extensive use of the typefaces Times New Roman, Verdana, and Georgia, all of which are available free from Microsoft. (Regrettably, Microsoft has discontinued making these typefaces freely available on the Web, presumably because all new computers have them already installed.) In particular, if you do not have Verdana installed in your computer, navigational links may be difficult to read.

If the legibility of text is a consistent problem, you may wish to set your monitor to 640 x 480 resolution. You will not be able to see as much onscreen at once, but your display will be noticeably clearer.

Do you support the use of handheld devices such as the Palm series or Pocket PC to view The Atlantic Online?

While we do not have the resources to support the use of handheld devices, it is possible to view content from the site using AvantGo software or another handheld Web browser, such as Microsoft's Pocket Internet Explorer or EarthLink Wireless's browser.

In the future we plan to offer a "text-only" view of current pages on our site, to facilitate ease of use on thin Web clients such as AvantGo and text browsers.

Do you support the use of MSN TV or WebTV to view The Atlantic Online?

We regret that we are unable to support the MSN TV/WebTV platform. Most of the site functions normally, but given the large amount of text on our site, pages may be difficult to read.

I am using Mac OS X, and I noticed that your homepage uses an unattractive, horizontally compressed font. Why does it look like this?

Under Mac OS X, most browsers can take advantage of Quartz text smoothing, and we have optimized our homepage so that smoothed text is readable at the various point sizes we use. Specifically, we substitute Lucida Grande, one of the typefaces included with Mac OS X, for our usual sans-serif font, Verdana, because Lucida Grande looks better when smoothed. If it instead appears narrow and angular, simply go to your browser's preferences dialog and turn on "Quartz text smoothing."

Does my print subscription entitle me to free access to the ProQuest premium archive?

Unfortunately, because the ProQuest premium archive was created and is maintained for us by a third party, there is a charge every time it is accessed. We may offer reduced-cost access in the future, however, as part of a larger package of subscriber benefits.

Do note that we maintain an extensive collection of back issues and other archival material on our own site which is freely available to subscribers.

I am using Netscape 1.1, and your site does not display properly! What is wrong with you people?!

We cannot guarantee the proper appearance of our site on some platforms, including obsolete browsers and those with formatting options disabled. In particular, if you choose to turn off style sheet compatibility, JavaScript, page-specified fonts, or page-specified font sizes, you will of course notice visual anomalies.

Text-only browsers and those optimized for reading aloud to the visually impaired should not have substantial problems, as the site uses primarily text links for navigation.

I have a technical question about your site that is not covered here. Where should I write?

For technical issues with our site not covered in this document, please visit our feedback page. Be sure to choose "Web Site Technical Help" as the subject of your message in the form's drop-down menu.


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