EAB Free Postal Course
Lesson Download

This webpage lets you download your next lesson of the EAB Esperanto Free Postal Course. Each lesson requires a different username and password (apart from the Introduction and First Lesson, which have no password); when your tutor returns your corrected answers to the previous lesson by e-mail, they will include the username and password for the next lesson. Each username and password is in lower case letters.

The lessons are available as .PDF files in two formats:

• Screen for viewing on screen, or printing as (large-format) portrait A4 sheets,
  or
• Booklet for printing as an A5 booklet on double-sided landscape A4 sheets, folded in half.

To view/print the files you need Adobe Acrobat Reader. This can be downloaded for free from Adobe's website.

Your main contact for any questions, problems or concerns about the course should be your tutor. However if you are unhappy with the advice or responses from that tutor, do please contact us at the EAB office and we will try to address your concerns.

The EAB Free Postal Course can only provide a 'taster' introduction to the language, so if at any point you feel you'd like to switch to a more detailed course, you are welcome to do so. You can read about EAB's portfolio of correspondence courses on our Esperanto Education website.

UK-based learners who successfully complete the EAB Free Postal Course are offered a subsidised place at the EAB 'Course You Can' residential course (subject to availability).

A5 Booklet Printing Tips

The A5-format lessons are laid out for printing onto double-sided A4 paper which is then folded in half, to give a compact booklet. The tips below address some of the difficulties that people can experience when printing the booklets; they assume you are using Acrobat Reader version 6.0 or later to view and print the .PDF file.

Double-sided: The lesson booklets are printed on double-sided paper.
If your printer doesn't have an automatic duplex/double-sided unit, first choose to print Subset: Even Pages Only, then reload the printed paper into the printer and choose to print Subset: Odd Pages Only on the other side of the paper; see area (1) on the dialogue screendump below.
If your printer does have an automatic duplex/double-sided unit, set double-sided printing for landscape book layout, or to flip on short edge.

Not Centered: If the A5 page images aren't centered on the paper, do both of the following:
(i) CLEAR the Auto-Rotate and Center option; see area (2) on the dialogue screendump below. This may seem perverse, but setting this option actually centers the image within the printable region of the paper; some printers (e.g. ink-jet printers) have a non-printable strip along one edge, so centering the image within the printable region puts it off-centre with respect to the paper. Having cleared this option, you might then suffer from the 'wrong orientation' problem (below).
(ii) Set the Page Scaling option to NONE; see area (3) on the dialogue screendump below. This option scales the page into the printable region, which (again) can put it off-centre with respect to the paper's edge.

Wrong Paper Orientation: Click on the properties button to the right of the printer name; see area (4) on the dialogue screendump below. In the printer properties dialogue, set the default paper feed/tray to landscape, or the default orientation to landscape. How to do this varies from printer to printer; you might need to click on a setup, advanced or features button to get at it. (The preview thumbnail picture in the Acrobat print screen might not update to reflect that new printer setting until you click the appropriate "print range" radio button again.)
Alternatively, if you are using a laser printer, in the Acrobat print dialogue, SET the Auto-Rotate and Center option; see area (2) on the dialogue screendump below. But if you are using an ink-jet printer, setting that option might then cause the 'Not Centered' problem (described above).

Halfsheets: The Second, Third and Sixth lessons each have an additional A5 sheet; for those lessons the 'second' or 'inner' .PDF file has two images of this additional sheet. Print it on double-sided A4, then guillotine it in half.

No Spaces/Letters Run Together: set the Page Scaling option to NONE; see area (3) on the dialogue screendump below. We have found that, on some printers, if Acrobat re-sizes the page, it gets the letter-spacing wrong.

Acrobat Reader v6 print dialogue settings

[ Click here for picture showing (old) Acrobat Reader v5 print dialogue settings ]

(If all that booklet printing advice seems too complicated for you, just view and print the screen/A4 pages .PDF file instead!)