Frequently asked questions

There are many benefits to both the CD-ROMs and the Online Training Library®. What's right for you really depends on your own needs and personal preferences.

Some people prefer our CD-ROMs because they like to have a physical product they can see and touch, that can be viewed on their computer anytime, and that can travel with them. The CD-ROMs can be viewed without being online or having a high-speed Internet connection. Also, all of the exercise files are included on the CD-ROMs, so you can follow along with the instructors and learn at your own pace.

With a subscription to our Online Training Library®, you have 24/7 access to every training video lynda.com has ever published and will publish during the course of your membership. The tutorials can only be viewed online as streaming video - subscribers cannot download them to their computers. Exercise files are downloadable with the Premium subscription only.

The training can only be watched online as streaming video. It cannot be downloaded to a computer. If this is not convenient for you, you might also want to consider our training CD-ROMs, which can be watched on your computer at any time without the need for Internet access. Click here for more information on our CD-ROMs.

We process and ship all orders as quickly as possible. Orders placed Monday through Friday are typically shipped within 24 hrs. Orders placed online on Saturday or Sunday will be shipped on the following Monday. Our office is closed for major U.S. holidays. If our office is closed when an online order is placed, we will typically ship the order on the first day that our office re-opens.

Log in with your username and password. Go to Click Here to Sign Up Now, then go to Step #3, click on To Re-Enroll, and enter your username and password. Enter your credit card number and expiry date, and click Submit.

We do not have those CD-ROMs here at our office, but you can request a replacement disk by contacting our publisher, Peachpit Press. On their contact form, please briefly describe the problem you're having and the details of your purchase. Be sure to include your contact information if they need to ask any additional information.

We will be happy to exchange it for the correct product, and will take care of all shipping costs for the exchange. Please contact our Customer Service department to arrange this. If you know your order/invoice number, please mention it when you contact us.

If possible, please have your order/invoice number available when you contact us.

As an educational company, we do our best to make our training accessible to students and educators. We are happy to offer all students and educators a 20% discount on the purchase of our CD-ROMs, and we also offer educational volume discounts. A Discounted Student Enrollment Program is also available for our Online Training Library®. For additional information, please click here to visit the Educators’ Resources area of our website. We do not offer a discount on our books because they are already offered at reduced rates.

Our training is best viewed using a broadband connection, such as DSL or cable modem. We do not recommend using our Online Training Library® with a 56k connection. A slow connection speed can also cause difficulties in downloading the exercise files. If you are connecting to the Internet using a slower connection, you can still view our movies, they will just take longer to download. Tip: If you wait until the entire movie downloads, you can watch it without hiccups or interruptions. You will know that the movie has finished downloading when the controller bar at the bottom of the QuickTime window has filled in completely with gray, from left to right.

In many cases, disks are not defective and do not need to be returned. Please review the following list of FAQ technical support topics. This will solve most issues. If you are still having a problem after using this troubleshooting guide, please contact us as described below.

Problem: I don’t see any video.
Solution: Make sure you have the latest version of the free QuickTime player installed. If you don't, download it from the Apple website.

Problem: When I try to open the exercise files, I receive an error message that says "Unexpected file format."
Solution: The native software application is required to run the exercise files (for example, Photoshop if they're PSD files, XLS if they're Excel files, etc.). Make sure you actually have the software used in the tutorial installed on your computer. Also, be sure to check the software version. For example, if you are using the CS3 version of Flash, you need to watch our Flash CS3 tutorials, not our Flash 8 tutorials.

Problem: On my Windows operating system, I don’t see any video or I receive an error message that says "Script runtime error."
Solution: Make sure you have the latest version of the free QuickTime player installed. If you don’t, download it from the Apple website. If you continue to have problems viewing the video, uninstall QuickTime and reinstall the latest version.

Problem: I can't see the entire movie or the movie plays audio only.
Solution: Make sure your screen resolution is set to 1024 x 768 or higher. To check your screen resolution, right-click on your desktop, click on Properties, and then click the Settings tab at the top.

Problem: I can’t see any video for the first few seconds.
Solution: This is a known QuickTime 7.0.2 issue. Wait until the video starts to appear and press the Back button to start at the beginning of the movie. We are working on a better solution to this problem.

If you have tried these solutions and your disk still doesn’t work, please use our contact form to contact our Customer Service department. Please let us know that you have followed the instructions in this troubleshooting guide, and include the following information:

• Your order/invoice number (if you know it)
• The name on the order
• The date the order was placed
• Which operating system you’re using
• The title of the CD-ROM and disk number (1, 2, or 3) that is not working
• A brief description of the problem.

If your disk is defective, we will send you a replacement disk at no charge, and we'll do our best to get it to you quickly. If you contact us Monday through Friday, we usually ship a replacement disk within 24 hours. If you contact us on Saturday or Sunday, we can ship a replacement disk on Monday.

This is a QuickTime bug that has the following fix: If you pause the movie and wait for more (or all) of it to download before you resume playing, it will play without stopping. You can tell how much of the movie has downloaded by looking at the controller bar at the bottom of the QuickTime window. You will see the bar fill in with gray, from left to right, as the movie downloads. Once the controller bar is completely filled in with gray, the movie has finished downloading.

There are two modes for viewing the training on lynda.com CD-ROMs. You should see the icons for both these modes when you run the CD on your computer, in a folder with the license agreement, etc. Standard mode opens the movies full-screen. Window mode (labeled WinMode) will open the movies in a smaller window. Double-click on the WinMode icon to open the tutorials in this mode. The same menu, features, and movies are accessible from each mode.

To enable cookies in Firefox, go to the Tools menu and select Options. Under the Privacy tab, click to expand the Cookies heading and reveal the full menu. Check the Allow Sites to Set Cookies box. Click OK.

In Safari, go to the Safari menu and select Preferences. Under the Security tab, set the Accept Cookies preference to Always. Close the Preferences window.

In Internet Explorer, go to the Tools menu and select Internet Options. Under the Privacy tab, make sure the slider is set to Medium (the default setting for IE). Click OK.

Close and restart your browser. If you still receive the error message, check the clock on your computer. Make sure the date and time are correct, and then log in again. This should resolve the problem.