HOW TO USE OWL

To use the OWL system, you will need to get access to a computer with an internet connection. If you do not have your own computer, there are several places on campus that you can use. If you need help finding and using a machine, please see the OIT Help Desk on the first floor of LGRC (lowrise, not tower).

Start Your Web Browser

Logging On

First Time Information

Working on Your Assignments

Miscellaneous

If You Are Using a Macintosh Computer

If you are working on a Macintosh computer, some of the mathematical symbols will not display correctly at first. You need to make one change in your browser.

You'll need to change the character set encoding in your browser. Depending on whether you are using Netscape or Internet Explorer and which version, the place to make this change is different. Look under either the View or Options menu for the item Character Set, Encoding, or Document Encoding. The current value for this will probably be Western(Latin1) or Western(ISO-8859-1). Change this to Western(Mac) or Western(MacRoman). When you've made the change, your page will reload and the appropriate math symbols should appear.

Note: For other web sites you may need to change the character set encoding back to what it was for their pages to display properly.

Unfortunately, there are some Macs where this still doesn't fix the problem. In that case you may need to try another browser or a higher version of the browser that you are using.

If You Are Using Netscape on a Unix Machine

You may have the same mathematical symbol display problem if you are on a Unix machine. Symbol fonts may need to be enabled for Netscape running under X. Go to http://www.tex2html.com/unix/ for more instructions.